NASA picks nine lunar south pole candidate sites for Artemis-3 manned landing
Click for NASA’s original image.
NASA today revealed the nine candidate sites in the Moon’s south polar region for its Artemis-3 manned mission, presently targeting a 2026 launch date.
The map to the right shows the location of those nine sites, numbered in order of priority, as follows:
- 1. Peak near Cabeus B
- 2 . Haworth
- 3. Malapert Massif
- 4. Mons Mouton Plateau
- 5. Mons Mouton
- 6. Nobile Rim 1
- 7. Nobile Rim 2
- 8. de Gerlache Rim 2
- 9. Slater Plain
The map also shows the planned landing sites for Intuitive Machine’s Athena lander in January 2025, and China’s Chang’e-7 lander in 2026, as well as where India’s Virkam lander touched down in 2023.
Cabeus B is likely the prime candidate site because its high elevation will make communciations easier, while placing it closer to the crater Cabeaus, which was impacted by the LCROSS mission in 2009 and found a significant signature of water in the ejecta plume of that impact.
To make a final decision NASA will be consulting all players, from the science community as well as the engineers. All of this however depends on other factors outside of science and engineering, mostly related to politics and practicality. The entire mission relies on the full version of the SLS rocket, the manned lunar version of SpaceX’s Starship, launched by Superheavy, and a working version of Lockheed Martin’s Orion capsule, none of which are presently flightworthy.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for NASA’s original image.
NASA today revealed the nine candidate sites in the Moon’s south polar region for its Artemis-3 manned mission, presently targeting a 2026 launch date.
The map to the right shows the location of those nine sites, numbered in order of priority, as follows:
- 1. Peak near Cabeus B
- 2 . Haworth
- 3. Malapert Massif
- 4. Mons Mouton Plateau
- 5. Mons Mouton
- 6. Nobile Rim 1
- 7. Nobile Rim 2
- 8. de Gerlache Rim 2
- 9. Slater Plain
The map also shows the planned landing sites for Intuitive Machine’s Athena lander in January 2025, and China’s Chang’e-7 lander in 2026, as well as where India’s Virkam lander touched down in 2023.
Cabeus B is likely the prime candidate site because its high elevation will make communciations easier, while placing it closer to the crater Cabeaus, which was impacted by the LCROSS mission in 2009 and found a significant signature of water in the ejecta plume of that impact.
To make a final decision NASA will be consulting all players, from the science community as well as the engineers. All of this however depends on other factors outside of science and engineering, mostly related to politics and practicality. The entire mission relies on the full version of the SLS rocket, the manned lunar version of SpaceX’s Starship, launched by Superheavy, and a working version of Lockheed Martin’s Orion capsule, none of which are presently flightworthy.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Something about deck chairs on the Titanic comes to mind, regarding Artemis.
Orion is going to dock with Starship…kinky!
This is the one where a woman of color and a trans man are landing, right?
I get so confused in evil clown world.
”The entire mission relies on the full version of the SLS rocket, the manned lunar version of SpaceX’s Starship, launched by Superheavy, and a working version of Lockheed Martin’s Orion capsule, none of which are presently flightworthy.”
SLS has flown, performed well, and is considered operational.
How is NASA going to get high resolution images of those potential landing sites? As pockmarked by craters as it is they’ll have to find a level area to bring down the lunar Starship. That’s going to be a much scarier landing than Apollo 11’s!
Andrew R: LRO has already taken more than a decades’ worth of high resolution imagery as well as good elevation data of the entire globe, with its pictures of the poles taken in a variety of lighting conditions. NASA already has very good topographic maps for each of these locations. All that will be required is precision at landing.
John,
I think that it works better if it is a trans-woman of color, because NASA gets all the benefits of the man, who turned woman, plus they don’t have to worry about assigning an actual person of color but can use the same person, merely because he — er — she says he — she! — says he (oh, I give up; he didn’t become a she just because he said so) is of color (and he isn’t of color just because he said so*). The beauty of a woke society, where anyone is what he says he is,** but that does not mean he can do the job, which is one of the tragedies of a woke society. If the person of color also identifies as multiple people, all you have to do is send him alone, and you still get a crew of four. Or seven, or even more. It isn’t evil, it is diverse, where everyone is included (except for the astronauts who have been replaced by the schizophrenic multi-personality astronaut), and all are exactly equal. Diversion, inclusion, and equition, all rolled into one astronaut whose feelings are of paramount consideration, rather than fact or science, but his feelings will be called “The Science,” which is settled.
NASA has to keep its eye on the ball. In this case, the ball isn’t space exploration but being more woke than thou. Under Obama, NASA’s main purpose was to help muslims feel good about their own scientific contributions to the world.*** Under Trump, NASA’s main goal was to return man to the Moon, and it didn’t matter which astronaut went, it just mattered that astronauts went. Then Biden swore in as president, and suddenly NASA isn’t smart enough to get back to the Moon until a couple of presidents later. If ever.
The worst part is that by announcing that they will choose a woman and a person of color, we now know without any doubt that these two choices are not the most qualified for the mission but are there only for political reasons. We don’t even know whether they are minimally qualified for the mission, but they could be there just for the ride. This means that NASA is a political agency, not a science or technology agency. What a terrible disappointment. We have spent decades waiting for NASA to bring the dream of space exploration and expansion to life, giving us more benefits than just weather forecasting and easy worldwide communication. Instead, all we got were political solutions for the government, and Artemis is not changing that in the least.
_______________
* What exact shade would suddenly turn him from white to colorful?
** No more presidential elections, because the president is whoever says he’s president. Presidents are self-selected, be he president of the country, the company, or the local PTA.
*** Which are pretty much limited to a well-decorated clock, a few centuries ago, which sounds more like art than science, but that is the closest they have come, which means that all their technologies are appropriated from other cultures or religions.
1) Bob, where did you deduce the intent of the list to be in priority order?
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-provides-update-on-artemis-iii-moon-landing-regions/
The actual press release says:
“The refined candidate Artemis III lunar landing regions are, in no priority order:”
Did they send out a different one earlier and then updated it?
2) Andrew R raises a good point about imagery resolution. What is good enough resolution? You have to look understand how specialists are able to see objects from imagery. One pixel could be noise, two pixels give you more confidence, conservative folk use 3. If you are looking for a rocket launcher in an terrestrial satellite image, 1 pixel is not enough. For LRO high resolution NAC images, you can use the ASU’s Quickmap tool to see how many high resolution images exist for each landing area. Usually it is ~1 meter/pixel. That implies a 2-3meter object. Seems big to me.
But you mentioned NASA has very good topography maps of each of these areas. How do you know that or maybe how do you define that? The LRO LOLA data has been used to generate 5m/pixel topographic maps, but if you examine the number of actual laser shots, only 7-13% of the polar regions has been painted by the 5m diameter laser shots. The rest is interpolated.
J Fincannon: 1. I could have sworn I had read in the press release that Cabeus B was considered the first choice, though nothing was firm at all. It isn’t there now, so either NASA reworded the release without telling anyone (they have done this in the past) or I simply misread what was there. Either could be the case, though the latter is more likely, as I certainly can make a mistake.
2. You are the engineer, so you of course can more skillfully dig into the data and quickly determine the resolution. I had not realized it was so coarse for the polar regions, especially because I have seen so many highly detailed maps of candidate landing locations and high resolution pictures of those locations.
At the same time, this resolution is far better than anything obtained during the 1960s for the Apollo landings. If NASA does things right (a very big “if”), it should be able to put its lander down safely at any of these locations with the information on hand. And since it will be SpaceX’s engineers flying Starship doing it, my confidence level is higher.
Bob: 1. I rechecked and cannot find any prioritized listing of these new regions. There are supposed to be a limited number of landing sites per region.
2. For some reason there are not so many ~0.5m/pixel LRO images in the polar region. Too bad. How does one find a safe place to land? A precursor surface asset could vet the site. Or one can take a probabilistic chance, after all we do have surface boulder frequency versus size for the Surveyors. Or one could make the lander like the Apollo LM and flown by the seat of the pants. Or made resilient to large boulders.
But we will not be getting more LRO high res images or laser data of the polar region due to the LRO orbit.
As to how SpaceX or Blue Origin will land, since it is proprietary, you will not know ahead of time unless they are willing to share. If NASA was doing it, NASA would be obligated by FOIA to provide that data. Do you consider that a shortfall?
J Fincannon asked, “As to how SpaceX or Blue Origin will land, since it is proprietary, you will not know ahead of time unless they are willing to share. If NASA was doing it, NASA would be obligated by FOIA to provide that data. Do you consider that a shortfall?”
No, because with SpaceX at least we can be very confident its engineers will do the proper work to make sure the landing will work, and they will certainly be aided by NASA’s engineers looking over their shoulder (NASA is NOT the FAA).
If NASA was doing it, we wouldn’t BE doing it, because the management and political issues would simply delay the project for decades. Those same issues would also likely force the project to design something that is not as efficient or practical.
J Fincannon asked: “How does one find a safe place to land? A precursor surface asset could vet the site. Or one can take a probabilistic chance, after all we do have surface boulder frequency versus size for the Surveyors. Or one could make the lander like the Apollo LM and flown by the seat of the pants. Or made resilient to large boulders.
“… As to how SpaceX or Blue Origin will land, since it is proprietary, you will not know ahead of time unless they are willing to share. If NASA was doing it, NASA would be obligated by FOIA to provide that data. Do you consider that a shortfall?”
There are several methods possible for safe landings. One of the techniques that Apollo’s Lunar Module used was to target an area that had a Sun angle of around 10° so that anywhere that was in shadow was too steep to land safely (12° or so was the maximum safe slope for launching off the surface). Landing just beyond a shadow or just beyond a crater was likely a safe spot.
NASA’s requirement is to use an unmanned lander as a test, so that first lander could possibly act as a precursor to survey the region. This works very well if this first lander is placed where NASA wants to set up its permanent, sustainable base.
Cameras or radars mounted at the lower end of the lander could be used as terminal guidance in finding a location free of large boulders and unacceptable slopes or unacceptably uneven terrain, and the legs can be made to adjust for sloped or uneven landing locations.
I do not see proprietary landing equipment, techniques, or methods as a problem. Each of the two companies can come up with their own versions based upon their hardware’s requirements. Not only will the intellectual property remain protected, but it will be suitable to the individual lander. I do see any ITAR information held by NASA but obtainable by FOIA request to be a huge problem, but laws are in place to prevent this.
As it is, NASA requires that data become public domain within a certain period of time (no FOIA required). For ISS experiments, this is five years, so any company doing research on ISS through NASA loses its proprietary use of the data it paid to collect, and this is a huge problem that I believe privately owned commercial space stations will correct, making them very desirable for companies to use. I see similar benefits for any privately owned commercial Lunar stations or Mars stations.