Lunar South Pole

The Lunar South Pole is a region of extreme scientific and strategic importance at the base of the Moon, characterised by permanently shadowed craters where temperatures can drop to -175 degrees Celsius, the coldest measured in the solar system. These permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) act as cold traps that preserve water ICE and other volatiles deposited over billions of years. Research indicates that as much as 20 per cent of the near-surface material within some PSRs is water ICE, a resource that could be split into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket propellant, making the South Pole a potential logistical hub for deep space exploration.

Unlike the Apollo landing sites near the equator, the South Pole has never been visited by a crewed mission. NASA has identified nine candidate landing regions near the South Pole for Artemis III and beyond, all within reach of permanently shadowed areas. The mission objective is to collect samples from these scientifically uncontaminated regions and Conduct the first direct human investigation of lunar ICE deposits. SpaceX's Starship HLS must land on sloped polar terrain that raises stability concerns for the 52-metre vehicle.

The South Pole is also a geopolitical frontier. China and Russia have announced plans for a joint International Lunar Research Station at the South Pole by the mid-2030s, and India's Chandrayaan-3 became the first spacecraft to land near the South Pole in 2023. The concentration of multiple national programmes on the same resource-rich terrain is creating the first signs of spatial competition on the lunar surface, a dynamic that the Artemis Accords were partly designed to manage.