India’s space agency is seeking to land a spacecraft on the Moon’s south pole, a mission that might progress India’s space ambitions while also expanding knowledge of lunar water ice, which could be one of the moon’s most precious resources. Here’s what we know about the presence of frozen water on the moon and why space agencies and private enterprises consider it a key to establishing a moon colony, mining on the moon, and maybe sending expeditions to Mars.
Scientists believed that water could exist on the moon as early as the 1960s, before the first Apollo landing
Scientists believed that water could exist on the moon as early as the 1960s, before the first Apollo landing. The samples returned for study by the Apollo crews in the late 1960s and early 1970s seemed to be dry. Brown University researchers returned to the lunar samples in 2008 with new technologies and discovered hydrogen inside microscopic particles of volcanic glass. Water was discovered on the moon’s surface in 2009 by a NASA instrument onboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 expedition.
The same year, another NASA spacecraft that crashed into the moon’s south pole discovered aqueous ice beneath the surface. An earlier NASA mission, the Lunar Prospector, discovered evidence that the south pole’s shadowed craters had the highest quantity of water ice.
Scientists are interested in pockets of ancient water ice at the Moon’s south pole
Scientists are interested in pockets of ancient water ice because they could reveal evidence of lunar volcanoes, material brought to Earth by comets and asteroids, and the formation of oceans. If there is enough water ice on the moon, it might serve as a supply of drinking water and help cool equipment. It may also be broken down to produce hydrogen for fuel and oxygen for breathing, allowing missions to Mars or lunar mining to proceed. The United Nations Outer Space Treaty of 1967 forbids any country from claiming possession of the moon. There is no clause that would prevent commercial operations from continuing.
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The Artemis Accords, a US-led effort to establish a set of principles for moon exploration and resource utilization, have 27 signatories. China and Russia have yet to sign. Attempts to land on the moon have already failed. Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft was supposed to arrive at the South Pole this week, but it spun out of control on approach and crashed on Sunday.
The south pole is full of craters and deep pits, far from the equatorial zone targeted by earlier missions, including the crewed Apollo landings. According to ISRO, the Chandrayaan-3 mission is on schedule for an attempted landing on Wednesday. In 2019, an earlier Indian mission failed to land safely in the area sought by Chandrayaan-3. Both the United States and China have planned missions to the south pole.
