The Return to the Moon

Tuesday - July 25 2023, 00:53 UTC - 1 year ago

It's been over 50 years since humans last walked on the moon in 1972, but this year private companies and national space agencies plan to take us back, to lead to getting humans living and working on the moon. In 2024, the Artemis II mission will send a crew of four astronauts to the moon on a 10-day mission.

We’re going back to the moon. And back. And back. And back again. It’s been more than 50 years since humans last walked on the lunar surface, but starting this year, an array of missions from private companies and national space agencies plan to take us back, sending everything from small robotic probes to full-fledged human landers. The ultimate goal? Getting humans living and working on the moon, and then using it as a way station for possible later missions into deep space.Here’s what’s next for the moon.

More than a dozen robotic vehicles are scheduled to land on the moon in the 2020s. On July 14, India launched its Chandrayaan-3 mission, a second attempt from the country to land on the surface of the moon after Chandrayaan-2 crashed there in 2019.That landing attempt will come in August. Hot on its heels are two private companies in the US, Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines, both partly funded by NASA to begin moon landings this year. Astrobotic’s Peregrine One lander is scheduled to carry a suite of instruments (some from NASA) to the moon’s northern hemisphere later this year to study the surface, including a sensor to hunt for water ice and a small rover to explore. And Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander will attempt a lunar first.

Both companies have bigger ambitions. In 2024, Astrobotic hopes to send a NASA rover called VIPER to drive into some of the moon’s permanently shadowed craters and hunt for water ice. Intuitive Machines’ second mission, meanwhile, will deploy a small hopping vehicle that will jump into one of these pitch-black craters and carry a drill for NASA. "There’s quite a lot of excitement around that," says Xavier Orr, the CEO of the Australian firm Advanced Navigation, which will provide the landing navigation system for Nova-C and the hopper. The craters, he adds, are thought to be "the most likely places of finding ice on the moon." .

These private companies are backed by millions of dollars in government money, driven by NASA’s desire to return humans to the moon as part of its Artemis program. NASA wants to expand commercial moon activity in the same way it has helped fund commercial activity in Earth orbit with companies such as SpaceX. "The goal is we return to the moon, open up a lunar economy, and continue exploring to Mars," says Nujoud Merancy, chief of NASA’s Exploration Mission Planning Office at the Johnson Space Center in Texa. The ultimate plan, Merancy says, is to foster a "permanent settlement on the moon." .

Not all are convinced, especially when it comes to how companies will make money on lunar missions outside of funding from NASA. "What is the GDP of lunar activities?" says Sinead O’Sullivan, a former senior researcher at Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. "Some commercial economy may evolve, but it’s kind of hard to tell." .

In November 2024, if all goes to plan, the Artemis II mission will send a crew of four astronauts—three American and one Canadian—around the moon on a 10-day mission in NASA’s Orion spacecraft, launched by the agency’s mighty new Space Launch System rocket. Humans have not traveled to the moon since Apollo in 1972.