NASA reveals where it wants the next Americans to land on the moon

The first human mission to land on the moon in some 50 years is now scheduled for as early as 2025, and would be the first crewed lunar landing since the last of the Apollo missions in 1972. NASA has vowed to return humans to the lunar surface — an audacious plan born during the Trump administration that has been embraced by the Biden White House.

While it has suffered some setbacks and delays, the program is the first deep-space, human exploration program since Apollo to survive subsequent administrations. But unlike Apollo, Artemis is designed to create a permanent presence on and around the moon. And NASA has forged ahead with a sense of urgency, as China also aims to send astronauts to the moon.

In a briefing Friday, NASA officials said they chose the landing sites using data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — a robotic spacecraft that has been mapping the lunar surface since 2009 — as well as other studies of the moon.

“Selecting these regions means we are one giant leap closer to returning humans to the moon for the first time since Apollo,” Mark Kirasich, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for the Artemis campaign development division, said in a statement. “When we do, it will be unlike any mission that’s come before as astronauts venture into dark areas previously unexplored by humans and lay the groundwork for future long-term stays.”

NASA had already announced it was going to return to the lunar South Pole. But the specific sites, all in a cluster of six degrees latitude of the South Pole, were chosen, NASA said, because they provide safe landing spots that are close enough to permanently shadowed regions to allow crew to conduct a moonwalk there as part of their six-and-a-half-day stay on the moon.

That, NASA said, would allow astronauts “to collect samples and conduct scientific analysis in an uncompromised area, yielding important information about the depth, distribution and composition of water ice that was confirmed at the moon’s South Pole.”

Water is important to sustain human life, but also because its component parts — hydrogen and oxygen — can be used for rocket propellant.

The Apollo missions went to the equatorial regions of the moon, where there are long stretches of daylight — for as long as two weeks at a time. The South Pole, by contrast, may only have only a few days of light, making the missions more challenging and limiting the windows of when NASA can launch.

“It’s a long way from the Apollo sites,” said Sarah Noble, Artemis lunar science lead. “Now we’re going somewhere completely different.”

The announcement comes as NASA is preparing…