Six countries are aiming to send missions to the Moon in the next year. But will they all make it?
Some of the national space agencies running these expeditions are providing only scant details about the missions and when they will launch, with schedules changing frequently. Scientist also say that the war in Ukraine is very likely to delay Russia’s mission — and could have unexpected effects on other ones, too.
Even if missions depart from Earth as scheduled, there is no guarantee of their success. India’s last lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2, succeeded in getting a spacecraft into orbit in 2019, but its lander and rover crashed when they tried to land. Israel’s privately developed Beresheet lander also smashed into the surface earlier that year.
South Korea aims to launch its Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter this year. It will carry a NASA instrument called ShadowCam that can peer into heavily shaded craters, as shown in this artist's impression.Scientists are also looking forward to data from the South Korean mission’s PolCam instrument, which Sim says will provide the first map of the entire Moon using polarized light, something that hasn’t been done for any moons or planets.
The Moon’s tiny iron core “is so small that no existing theory can explain how it once generated a strong magnetic field”, he says. Yet observations from space of ancient rocks in the Moon’s crust today reveal that they are highly magnetic and were formed in the presence of a magnetic field. “So there is a huge disconnect between theory and the observations.”
One of the several instruments on the lander is a multi-band camera, which will carry out spectroscopic observations for the mineral olivine. Originally formed deep inside the Moon, olivine can be exposed by meteorite impacts. Luna-25 is the first of a series of Luna missions scheduled for the coming years, and is intended to operate and collect data for one year.
“As the Moon becomes more accessible through lower-cost transportation, private commercial missions will support frequent experiments and more scientific activities,” he says. “Commercial lunar exploration is gaining significant momentum around the world.” The lander and rover will be similar to those of the Chandrayaan-2 lander, but will be modified to help ensure a successful landing. The mission will have a seismometer, an experiment to measure heat flow from the Moon, and spectrometers.
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