by The year 2023 was important for lunar science. India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft landed near the Moon’s south pole, a major achievement for a country relatively new to the space scene, especially after its Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft crashed in 2019.
At the same time, NASA has been preparing for a series of Moon-related missions, including its Artemis program. In 2023, the agency gained nine signatories to the Artemis Accords, an international agreement for peaceful space exploration, for a total of 32 countries that have signed it so far.
As Mariel Borowitz of Georgia Tech explains, the United States now has broad bipartisan political support for space travel – for the first time since the 1970s – and the return of missions to the Moon is the natural first goal.
Here are five stories The Conversation US published over the past year about lunar exploration, including why people want to return to the Moon, what Chandrayaan-3 found during its initial foray across the lunar surface, and the growing problem of the moon. space junk.
1. Why aim for the Moon?
Missions to the Moon have potential benefits for a variety of sectors, including commercial, military and geopolitical.
“Since humans last left the Moon in 1972, many have dreamed of the days when people would return. But for decades, these efforts have run into political obstacles,” Borowitz wrote. “This time, the United States’ plans to return to the Moon are likely to succeed: it has the cross-sector support and strategic importance to ensure continuity, even in politically difficult times.”
While some of these potential uses are incredibly far away (from extracting resources from the Moon to sending military satellites into orbit around the Moon), missions to the Moon in the near term will help inform scientists and stakeholders about the future possibilities.
Read more: Returning to the Moon can benefit the commercial, military and political sectors – explains a space policy expert
2. Searching for sulfur
India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander landed on the surface of the Moon, just a few kilometers from the lunar south pole, in late August 2023.
Their rover, named Pragyan, took measurements of the lunar surface and discovered that the soil near the south pole contains a surprise: sulfur.
As Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, a physicist at Washington University in St. Louis, wrote, future lunar missions or a future lunar base could use lunar sulfur as an ingredient in everything from fuel and fertilizer to concrete.
Read more: Chandrayaan-3 sulfur measurements open doors to lunar science and exploration
3. Water on ice
But sulfur is not the only resource that the lunar south pole could offer. For several years now, scientists have predicted that the lunar south pole could have water in the form of ice. And the discovery of sulfur from Chandrayaan-3 gives scientists more information about how and how recently ice might have formed on the surface.
Comets or volcanic activity could have brought water to the Moon years ago. If volcanic activity is to blame for the appearance of water, scientists would also expect to see sulfur at higher levels, wrote Paul Hayne, assistant professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.
A series of future missions to the Moon, including NASA’s VIPER mission planned for 2024, will continue to investigate where ice could be hiding on the Moon.
Read more: Scientists suspect ice is hidden on the Moon, and a series of missions from the US and elsewhere are searching for it.
4. Moon debris
With all the missions to the Moon, both current and future, some experts have expressed concern about the increase in space debris in “cislunar space,” or the space between the Earth and the Moon and around the Moon.
NASA currently does not track space debris left over from its missions, and this lack of oversight has many people concerned.
A team from the University of Arizona has begun building a catalog of abandoned debris in this space. The team members started by identifying some large objects, and as they improved their methods, they were able to see objects as small as a cereal box. The team hopes that this work will one day improve the sustainability of future lunar missions.
“While there is still a long way to go, these efforts are designed to ultimately form the basis of a catalog that will help achieve safer and more sustainable use of cislunar orbital space as humanity begins its expansion outside of the Earth,” writes Vishnu. Reddy, professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona.
Read more: More lunar missions mean more space junk around the Moon: Two scientists are creating a catalog to track the junk
5. Future travelers
Earlier this year, NASA announced who will form the crew of its Artemis II mission. Artemis II, scheduled for late 2024, will fly near the Moon and test technology and equipment planned for use on future missions. It will also mark the first time people have gotten close to the lunar surface in more than 50 years.
Three of the four crew members have spent time in space and the fourth has spent a lot of time in spaceflight simulations. Each began his career as a military pilot, as did all the Apollo astronauts. But this crew represents more racial and gender diversity than the Apollo-era astronauts.
“Unlike the Apollo program of the 1960s and 1970s, with Artemis, NASA has placed great emphasis on building a politically sustainable lunar program by encouraging participation from a diverse group of people and countries,” wrote Wendy Whitman Cobb, professor of strategy. and safety studies at Air University.
Read more: Meet the next four people heading to the Moon: How the diverse crew of Artemis II shows NASA’s plan for the future of space exploration
This story is a summary of articles from The Conversation archives.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit news organization bringing you data and analysis to help you understand our complex world.
It was written by: Maria Magnuson, The conversation.
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