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SPACE PIONEERS

By Thomas Moore, science correspondent

As a pioneering mission prepares for lift-off this week, the eyes of the world once more turn upwards - to the moon.

A rocket carrying NASA technology will blast off for the unexplored lunar south pole - part of an Earth-wide drive to find a crucial substance: water.

Moon missions have historically been dominated by the United States and USSR.

In a frantic decade between 1966 and 1976, the Soviet Union's Interkosmos made eight touchdowns with its Luna programme; NASA landed five Surveyor probes and six crewed Apollo craft.

Then there's a long pause. Not until 2013 did another spacecraft make it to the moon - China's Chang'e 3.

India and Japan are the only other nations to successfully land in the dust, though Israel came close.

If you look at a map of all the touchdowns, it's striking for two reasons.

Firstly, only one - China's Chang'e 4 - has landed on the far side of the moon, beyond the reach of direct radio communications with Earth.

Secondly, only India's Chandrayaan-3 has braved the moon's south pole, where cliffs and boulders make it harder to find a suitable landing site, and heavy shadows from the sun, low on the horizon, make hazards harder to spot and the descent more perilous.

But Chandrayaan-3 was the pioneer. Several US missions will head for the pole this year 鈥� and an international armada of spacecraft will follow.

All looking for water.

BILLIONS OF GALLONS?

Look below at the iconic image of Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin bouncing in the lunar dust and it's odd to even consider the moon as a source of water.

But Tranquillity Base - the location of the first-ever crewed moon landing - and the other landing sites for the crewed missions, are all strung along the equator, where intense sunshine raises daytime temperatures to 120C.

It's not a promising place to find water.

But it's almost certainly a different story at the poles, particularly the south, where deep craters are permanently in shadow.

These are the Craters of Eternal Darkness, where the temperature can be as low as -230C, easily cold enough to lock up any water molecules as ice, which slowly builds up over billions of years.

There are more than 300 of these types of crater on the moon - areas that, due to the moon's orbit and rotation, are in permanent darkness.

There's good evidence that ice is there. In October 2009, NASA deliberately smashed a rocket into one of the craters and confirmed that the plume of material thrown off the surface contained hydroxyl, a key indicator for the presence of water.

NASA believes there could be hundreds of billions of gallons of water on the moon.

But only when spacecraft or robotic rovers make it into the craters will scientists know for sure whether the ice can be easily collected 鈥� and in what quantity.

And that could be this year.

TURNING MOON WATER INTO OXYGEN AND ROCKET FUEL

Finding large amounts of water ice would be a big deal.

It would help scientists understand our origins.

According to one theory, a collision billions of years ago between Earth and a Mars-sized planet called Theia formed the moon and deposited large amounts of water. That could have been topped up by water-bearing asteroids and meteors - with no lunar atmosphere to burn them up, they have pockmarked the surface with impact craters.

But finding water isn't just about science - it has practical applications too.

NASA plans to land astronauts at the south pole in 2026 as part of its third Artemis mission.

And this time, it's the start of a more continuous human presence on the moon, with astronauts eventually shuttling to and from an orbiting space station called the Lunar Gateway.

Abundant water at the poles would sustain the astronauts, providing them with hydration.

But by splitting the water molecule, H2O, they would also have a source of oxygen to breathe and hydrogen that could be used as rocket fuel.

It would slash the cost of lunar exploration.

Astrobotic, a private American company, launched the Peregrine lunar lander in January. However, a fault occurred en route to the moon and the mission could not be completed.

According to Astrobotic, it would cost about $1.2m (拢940,000) to take 1kg 鈥� that's one litre of water - to the surface of the moon from Earth.

Much of that eye-watering sum is because of all the fuel needed to launch a rocket and break free of the Earth's gravity.

So finding a source of water on the moon would change everything, opening up new possibilities.

Mining for minerals and shipping them back to Earth begins to make sense.

And so does using the moon as a launch pad for human missions to Mars and beyond.

'SPACE HOPPER' ON THE MOON?

It will be a busy year for missions to the south pole.

The first will be the car-sized Nova-C lander as part of the IM-1 mission, which will test technologies that will make future touchdowns easier.

After lift-off on a Space X rocket from Cape Canaveral as early as Wednesday, IM-1 will aim for a relatively flat landing site near the Malapert-A crater at 80.4 degrees south, within the polar region. That's much further south than India's Chandrayaan spacecraft.

It's built and operated by Intuitive Machines and a soft landing would be the first by a private company 鈥� part of a drive by NASA to cut costs and take technological leaps.

It will carry experimental NASA instruments for accurately measuring speed, distance and how much fuel is left in the tanks. It will also test equipment for communicating with mission control and carry navigation beacons to help future missions.

Alongside NASA's kit will be commercial payloads, including artwork by Jeff Koons and a new material for thermal insulation.

There will also be the EagleCam, a camera that will deploy when Nova-C is 30m above the surface and will capture the first 'selfie' of a spacecraft making an extra-terrestrial landing.

Intuitive Machines will be even more ambitious with its next mission later this year.

The spacecraft will head for a ridge next to the Shackleton Crater at the moon's south pole, deep in the polar region.

It will have what NASA calls a Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 鈥� a drill and equipment for analysing samples. It will look for ice up to 1m below the surface.

The spacecraft will also carry a "space hopper".

It's called the Micro-Nova, again built and operated by Intuitive Machines.

It stands 76cm high and it will use its thrusters to jump around the crater, taking high resolution colour images of the surface.

It'll be the first time humans have sent a robotic craft into a heavily shadowed crater 鈥� and the mission should give us strong evidence of the presence of water ice.

JOURNEY TO THE SOUTH POLE

Later in 2024, NASA will send a robotic rover to the Nobile Crater, further south than ever before.

VIPER 鈥� the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover 鈥� will be carried by the Griffin lander.

It will be the second attempt by US company Astrobotic to reach the moon's surface. Its first, the Peregrine spacecraft, suffered a catastrophic propellant leak soon after leaving near-Earth orbit in January.

VIPER is the size of a golf buggy and will trundle several miles in and around the crater on a 100-day scouting mission.

It should create the first resource map for astronauts following behind on the Artemis missions.

VIPER will have a one-metre-long drill to take samples beneath the surface, and three instruments to survey and analyse ice deposits and water-containing minerals.

But it will also hunt for other volatiles 鈥� molecules that, like water, evaporate at moderately warm temperatures. These could include ammonia and carbon dioxide, which may prove useful to human missions.

But there may also be harmful volatiles that human missions will need to mitigate against to make the environment safe.

VIPER will head out on two-week road trips into the crater, gathering as much data as possible. But it will need to return to a safe haven before the regular wobble in the moon鈥檚 position, when contact with the rover will be lost for several days.

It'll need to park up somewhere in sunlight, where the rover can generate enough power from its solar panels to keep its systems warm as temperatures dip to -230C.

It underlines how hostile the environment is in the south pole. Not good for machines, even worse for humans.

TO THE MOON AND BEYOND

Beyond 2024, there are missions planned to the south pole region by several countries.

India and Japan have a joint mission planned for 2026. China is hoping to land at the pole the same year, and then build a research station on the surface by 2030.

All the robotic missions are preparing the way for humans to return to the moon.

NASA will almost certainly be first, aiming to land astronauts in 2026 using the Space X Starship.

They'll remain on the surface for just under a week, carrying out a series of moonwalks, surveying, and taking samples.

Astronauts from the UK could be on future missions.

A more permanent human presence becomes more realistic with a plentiful source of water. Astronauts could work from a moon base, or commute to the surface from a lunar space station.

It might even open a new chapter of space exploration, with astronauts heading to Mars and beyond.

It all becomes possible with water on the moon.

And it's the reason the Space Race is being re-run.