Why is the South Pole of the Moon a Popular Destination for Fallen Moon? Human probes are intensively exploring the moon. Astronauts | The Moon | South Pole

Recently, human lunar probes have been intensively exploring the moon, marking the arrival of a new round of lunar exploration fever. The increasing number of lunar exploration countries, enhanced international cooperation, and the rise of commercial lunar exploration have become new trends in this round of lunar exploration fever.

Behind the climax of lunar exploration is the years of technological accumulation of various countries, highlighting the strategic position of the moon in future technological development and resource utilization. With the increasing depth of human exploration of the universe, the scientific connotation of lunar exploration will continue to expand, even surpassing the moon itself.

A new round of lunar exploration fever is rising globally. On July 14th, the Indian lunar probe "Lunzhou-3" was launched and made a soft landing on the surface of the South Pole of the Moon on the evening of August 23rd. On August 11th, Russia's "Moon-25" embarked on a journey to the moon, but unfortunately lost contact with the moon on August 19th. This is the second time in 47 years that Russia has launched a lunar probe. The first half of the mission went smoothly, but there were problems with the final orbit adjustment of the moon landing, only one step away from the door.

Today, Japan will launch the "Small Lunar Exploration Smart Lander", which is expected to become Japan's "debut" for lunar landing.

According to the plan, the American visual machine company "Nova-C" lunar lander will be launched on November 15th. It is the first lander of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Service Program and has the potential to become the first US private company probe to land on the moon. At the end of the year, the United States plans to launch the Peregrine-1 lander from Aerospace Robotics Technology using the newly developed Vulcan Centaur rocket.

Behind the surge of this round of lunar exploration is the accumulation of years of hard work and technology from various countries around the world. The strategic position of lunar exploration in future technological development and resource utilization is becoming increasingly prominent.

1

Japan has been working hard for many years

Striving for a "successful moon landing" once again

Japan's interest in lunar exploration has a long history. As early as January 24, 1990, Japan was the first country to break the monopoly of the United States and the Soviet Union on lunar exploration and launched its first lunar probe, the Feitian spacecraft, becoming the third country to launch a lunar probe.

Japan's lunar orbiter once achieved a lunar collision. On September 13, 2007, Japan launched the "Moon Goddess" lunar orbiter, which collided with the moon on June 11, 2009 after approximately 10 months of regular operation and 7 and a half months of later operation.

On November 16, 2022, Japan's first lunar lander, the Haoke, carried the hope of its first lunar landing mission and took off aboard a heavy rocket from the US Space Launch System. Six days later, Japan announced the failure of the "Hospitality" mission. However, the Japanese ultra small lunar orbiter "Pony", which was launched together with the "Haoke", is currently operating normally.

As the world's first commercial lunar landing mission, on December 11 last year, the Japanese private aerospace company ispace "White Hare R" M1 lunar lander was launched aboard the American "Falcon 9" rocket. However, on May 26th this year, ispace announced the failure of its lunar landing mission. The mission of the UAE's first lunar probe, the Rashid lunar rover, which boarded the lander, also failed, resulting in the failure of the UAE's first lunar exploration attempt.

This time, Japan launched the "Small Lunar Exploration Smart Lander" from the Seed Island Space Center using the H-2A carrier rocket, aiming to verify the precise lunar soft landing technology.

This lander is 1.7 meters long, 2.7 meters wide, and 2.4 meters high, with a research and development cost of 18 billion yen. It will make a soft landing in a small crater in the Marus region of the Moon's frontal storm, with a landing accuracy of over 100 meters.

The Small Lunar Exploration Intelligent Lander will take photos of multiple locations on the lunar surface, use facial recognition technology from digital cameras to detect circular craters, and determine the location of the lander based on data previously collected by the Moon Goddess orbiter. To achieve precise landing, it can measure altitude through radar and use sensors to sense its own inclination.

After landing, this lander will use a multi band camera to evaluate the local mineral environment, especially the olivine on the lunar surface, which may have originated from the lunar mantle. The lander is also equipped with a small laser reflector array, which experts will use to investigate whether the lunar environment and resources can be utilized by humans, and to study the possibility of sending astronauts to the moon for long-term activities, as well as accumulate experience for unmanned exploration of Mars.

As part of its participation in the American Artemis program, Japan will also send astronauts to the lunar space station with the help of the United States, and looks forward to landing on the moon. On July 21st of this year, Toyota Motor Company revealed that it is jointly developing a manned pressurized lunar rover weighing about 10 tons with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The rover is planned to be launched by a US rocket in 2029 to support the US lunar exploration program Artemis.

2

The first landing on the South Pole of the Moon in India and Russia, with fierce competition

In the past decade or two, India has been striving for its dominant position in Asian lunar exploration, and in recent years, it has also engaged in fierce competition with Japan in lunar exploration.

On October 22, 2008, India launched its first lunar probe, the Lunar Ship-1 Orbiter. On July 22, 2019, another attempt was made to land on the moon with the launch of the lunar rover-2, but it failed during the landing phase.

On July 14th of this year, India launched "Moonship-3" in order to complete the unfinished tasks of "Moonship-2". Therefore, the landing point of "Lunzhou-3" is the same as "Lunzhou-2", and the design of the lander and lunar rover is also similar. However, the number of 800 N landing buffer engines on the lander has been reduced from the original 5 to 4, in order to reduce the complexity of the system and reduce the failure rate.

In order to improve the success rate of landing, the "Lunar Ship-3" has been re matched with attitude control engines, doubling its attitude correction capability and adding a Doppler laser velocimeter to measure the three-dimensional attitude of the lander in real time. In addition, its flight control software and emergency control system have also been strengthened to cope with potential accidents during landing.

At the same time, India has also simplified the orbital propulsion module, using the weight reduction quota to increase the propellant of the lander, and designed a "failure mode" of expanding the range for random landing after missing the scheduled landing site.

Due to the fact that India's most powerful geostationary orbit carrier rocket, the MK-III, has a capacity of only about 2 tons in the Earth Moon transfer orbit, it is not possible to directly launch the "Moonship-3" into the Earth Moon transfer orbit. Therefore, after entering the Earth Moon transfer orbit, the "Moonship-3" needs to rely on its own engine to ignite and accelerate multiple times before entering the Earth Moon transfer orbit.

So, "Lunzhou-3" entered lunar orbit on August 5th, more than 20 days after launch, and on August 17th, it entered a polar orbit around the moon at an altitude of 100 kilometers. At this point, the Vikram lander equipped with a lunar rover separated from the propulsion module and entered an elliptical orbit 35 to 100 kilometers away from the lunar surface, preparing for landing on the South Pole surface of the moon.

However, to India's surprise, the Russian "Lunar-25" lander was launched on August 11th and successfully entered lunar orbit on August 16th, with plans to land at the South Pole of the Moon on August 21st. On August 20th, the Russian National Space Group announced that the "Lunar-25" probe was lost after colliding with the lunar surface on August 19th due to deviation from its intended orbit.

According to Russia's previously announced lunar exploration and development plan, "Lunar-25" is the first mission of the first phase of the plan. Afterwards, Russia plans to launch the "Luna-26" lunar orbiter in 2027 to conduct a survey of the entire moon, provide data relay services for the "Luna-27" launched in 2028, and provide information for selecting manned lunar landing sites. The "Luna-27" lander will be used to study the internal structure of the moon and the mechanism of lunar earthquakes, as well as the mineralogy, chemistry, and isotopic composition of lunar soil at a depth of 2 meters below the lunar surface. In 2030 or later, "Luna-28" will be launched.

The landing site of the $75 million lunar rover-3 is located southwest of the Mancinus U crater near the South Pole of the Moon. After a successful soft landing, it will release a small lunar rover. However, the design lifespan of the Indian lander and lunar rover is only one lunar day, as they do not have radioactive isotope heaters installed and cannot survive the harsh long lunar nights. The Russian "Lunar-25" has a designed lifespan of 1 year and was originally planned to make a soft landing near the Boguslavsky crater in the South Pole of the Moon, only 120 kilometers away from the landing site of "Lunar-3".

With the crash of Russia's Lunar-25, the heavy responsibility of landing for the first time at the complex terrain of the South Pole of the Moon has once again returned to the shoulders of India's Lunar-3.

Finally, at 20:34 Beijing time on August 23rd, "Lungshan-3" successfully made a soft landing at the designated location near the south pole of the moon. This has made India the fourth member of the Lunar Landing Club, and the Lunar-3 has become the first human probe to land at the closest location to the South Pole of the Moon.

3

The United States is returning to the Moon for commercial lunar exploration, which is in the ascendant

As a world power in lunar exploration, in the 1960s and 1970s, the United States launched multiple and multiple lunar probes in order to achieve manned moon landings. Finally, 12 Americans landed on the moon through the Apollo spacecraft. In the past 30 years, the United States has been continuously striving for lunar exploration, launching multiple lunar probes, and in the past two years, it has been making frequent efforts in commercial lunar exploration.

On June 28th last year, the United States launched the "Gongshi" lunar probe into space. In November of the same year, Gongshi entered lunar orbit using a ballistic lunar transfer method. This is a NASA led Earth Moon Space Cube mission aimed at completing the mission at low cost through collaboration with commercial partners, validating the orbits to be used in future lunar space station plans, and testing new navigation technologies. The moon orbiting cubic star "Gongshi", which has been in orbit for over a year, is currently operating well, providing data support for Artemis' return to the moon project.

On November 16th last year, the United States launched its first "space launch system" to launch the "Orion" unmanned lunar spacecraft, carrying out the "Artemis-1" mission and embarking on a journey back to the moon.

The Artemis project is divided into three stages: the Artemis 1 mission is to implement unmanned lunar circumnavigation and study the possible effects of returning to the moon on the human body; The Artemis 2 mission is to carry out a manned lunar orbit, with four astronauts participating; The Artemis 3 mission is to carry out manned moon landing flights.

The Artemis Plan has three characteristics: firstly, extensive international cooperation. As of July 27th this year, 28 countries have signed the Artemis Agreement; The second is to establish a lunar space station, where astronauts first fly to the lunar space station, then depart from the lunar space station as needed to complete manned lunar missions, and finally return to the lunar space station; The third is to involve private enterprises, and NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Service Program provides an opportunity for small companies interested in the moon.

On November 15th this year, Houston Intuition Robotics will launch the Nova-C unmanned lunar lander using the Falcon 9, marking the first commercial lunar payload service program. At the end of this year, Pittsburgh Space Robotics will launch the Peregrine-1 lunar lander using its first Vulcan Centaur rocket, which will deliver over 20 commercial lunar payload service program payloads to the lunar surface.

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