Summary
Two spacecraft are scheduled to launch later this year to land near Shackleton Crater on the Moon’s south pole. One is Blue Origin’s large Endurance lander built by Jeff Bezos’ company, and the other is China’s Chang’e 7 mission, which includes a lander, orbiter, rover, and drone.
Key Facts
- Shackleton Crater is about 13 miles wide and 14,000 feet deep, located near the Moon’s south pole.
- The crater has large deposits of water ice, which could be used for drinking water, oxygen, and rocket fuel.
- Blue Origin’s Endurance lander is the largest lunar lander ever made, larger than the Apollo moon module.
- China’s Chang’e 7 mission includes multiple vehicles: a lander, orbiter, rover, and drone to search for ice.
- Both missions aim to land near Shackleton Crater in late summer 2024, but it is unclear which will arrive first.
- If both landers operate close to one another, it would be the first time landers from different countries work near each other on another world.
- The Moon’s south pole offers near-continuous sunlight on crater rims, useful for solar power, while the crater floors remain very cold to preserve ice.
- The US and China both plan to build lunar bases at the Moon’s south pole during the 2030s.
