The Race For The Moon Continues

South Korea has already gotten a head start on its lunar mission, having successfully launched a lunar orbiter to the moon in early August. Meanwhile, the race for the moon continues.

NASA’s Artemis 1 mission was delayed earlier this week due to engine problems, but it is again slated to launch tomorrow afternoon. The flyby is set to kick off a new initiative of US government lunar missions over fifty years after the Apollo project, which placed the first humans on the moon, concluded. No manned expeditions have visited Earth’s nearest neighbor in space since then.

According to Statista’s Katharina Buchholz, Artemis 1 will be the first of three missions aimed at putting an individual back on the moon by 2025.

Due to the announcement of lunar missions by a number of other nations and commercial enterprises, the race to the moon is resuming outside of the United States.

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Who will be the next space agency or company to successfully visit the moon after the Chinese probes Chang’e 3 in 2013, Chang’e 4 in January 2019, and Long March 5 in 2020? The main lunar missions that have been announced to date are listed in the image. The dates could vary due to the difficulties of space travel.

Following the failure of two missions by the Israeli private company SpaceIL in April 2019 and the Indian space agency ISRO in July of that year, the next soft landings on the moon are planned by US companies Astrobotic Technology and Intuitive Machines, which intend to carry landers and rovers to the moon by the end of this year or the beginning of next year as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program which has been awarding contracts to firms to build capabilities to go to the moon’s South Pole, which is intriguing for resource usage. Additionally, the United Arab Emirates Space Agency’s Rashid rover will be deployed on the moon in early 2023 by the Japanese company iSpace’s Hakuto lander, which will be launched later this year.

Due to the worldwide turbulence caused by Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, the country’s maiden launch from its revived moon program Luna is expected to be postponed until at least next year. The lander mission was supposed to be followed by an orbiter mission in 2024 and a manned journey to the moon’s orbit in 2029. Japan’s and India’s space agencies are also planning lander missions to the moon in 2023. Turkey also intends to reach the moon that year, albeit with a simpler impactor mission. A soft landing is scheduled for 2028.

New launches from China and the European Space Agency are scheduled for 2024 and 2025, respectively, and will concentrate on resource utilization concepts, as will NASA’s Viper rover program, which will commence in 2024 in collaboration with commercial enterprises. In addition, NASA and ESA plan to start building on a lunar orbit space station the same year.

South Korea has already gotten a head start on its lunar mission, having successfully launched a lunar orbiter to the moon in early August. By 2030, the government hopes to have made a soft landing on the moon.