The international Moon fleet
Japan led off a new wave of exploration in 2007 with its second Moon probe, Kaguya, also known as SELENE. Kaguya carried a twin-camera system, the Terrain Camera (TC), that has sent some astonishingly detailed three-dimensional views of the
surface, including the Apollo landing sites. Superb flyover movies of the
surface have been made by the high-definition TV system, while other instruments studied the surface composition and topography. Two
subsatellites, Okina and Ouna, were released to measure the gravitational field
of the Moon. In future, Japan has plans to land a probe on the Moon, possibly
with a surface rover.
Hot on the heels of Kaguya came
Earth over the Moon’s south pole from Kaguya
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China’s first Moon probe, Chang’e-1, named after a Chinese Moon goddess. Its instruments and aims were much the
same as Kaguya. A detailed 3D photographic map of the entire Moon was made. A second orbiter, Chang’e 2, was launched in 2010 with improved instruments and a lower orbit. Chang’e 3 landed on the Sinus Iridum in 2013 December, carrying a small rover. A
sample-return mission is expected in 2017, leading to an eventual manned
landing.
Another nation embarking on lunar exploration is India. The Indian Space
Research Organization’s first Moon probe was Chandrayaan-1, meaning ‘Moon craft’ in Sanskrit, launched in 2008. Among its instruments, Chandrayaan-1 carried a stereo camera with a resolution of 5 metres, better even than the one
aboard Kaguya. Several instruments were devoted to studies of the Moon’s crustal composition, including the Moon Mineralogy Mapper supplied by NASA and a modified version of the British-built X-ray spectrometer
that first flew on the European SMART-1 probe.
Like China and Japan, India also plans to land a rover on the Moon in the next
few years. As a precursor to that landing, Chandrayaan-1 released a Moon Impact
Probe which hit the Moon near the south pole on 2008 November 14. If all these
plans come to fruition we could have much new information about previously
unexplored regions of the Moon within the next ten years.
A NASA Moon probe called Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was launched in June 2009. Its main aims are to look for interesting
landing sites for future manned missions and to pursue the search for possible
frozen water at the poles. One of its most spectacular successes has been to
photograph the equipment left behind by the Apollo astronauts at their various landing sites, and even the trails they left in the lunar dust
as they moved around on foot and in the lunar rover.
As part of the continuing search for ice on the Moon, the spent upper stage of
LRO’s launch rocket was crashed into a permanently shadowed region within the crater
Cabeus near the Moon’s south pole on 2009 October 9. A sub-probe called the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), following four minutes behind the upper stage, observed the spray of
debris thrown up by the impact, analysing it for signs of water vapour, before
hitting the Moon itself and throwing up its own plume of debris. A small amount of water vapour was found in the dust of the crater’s floor. Better still, a NASA instrument called the Miniature Synthetic Aperture
Radar, or Mini-SAR, aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 has found signs of ice at least six feet deep in over 40 craters at the Moon’s poles.
Despite these positive findings, NASA’s plans for sending humans back to the Moon, called the Constellation programme, were cancelled by the US government in 2010. Hence the next humans to return
to the Moon might not be American or Russian but Chinese, Indian or Japanese.
Russia, incidentally, has not sent another probe to the Moon since Luna 24 in
1976.
For a list of recent and forthcoming missions see
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Japanese lunar orbiter. Compiled photographic atlas from polar orbit. Measured
surface composition and crustal thickness
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Chinese lunar orbiter. Stereo imaging and surface studies
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Indian Space Research Organization lunar orbiter. Found signs of ice at the Moon’s poles
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NASA spacecraft in low polar orbit. High-resolution mapping of surface features
and topography
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Chinese lunar orbiter. Surveyed landing sites for Chang’e 3 unmanned rover. Subsequently flew past the asteroid Toutatis
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Twin NASA orbiters. Mapped the Moon’s gravitational field in detail
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Landed on the Sinus Iridum on 2013 December 14, delivering a rover called Yutu (“Jade Rabbit”)
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