Mare Imbrium

• Two commercial spacecraft are scheduled to launch to the Moon early in 2024 under a Nasa initiative called the Commercial Lunar Payload Service CLPS.
• This programme is intended to kickstart a commercial transportation service that can deliver Nasa experiments and other payloads to the lunar surface.
• If successful, these missions will represent the first landings on the Moon by spacecraft designed and flown by private companies.
• They could potentially open up a new era of commercial lunar exploration and science.

• These solar energetic particle events (SEPs) are more likely to occur during the Sun’s peak of activity (solar maximum), which occurs every 11 years.
• During periods of lower solar activity (including the solar minimum), the Sun’s magnetic field, which extends throughout the Solar System, weakens.
• This is important for examining how dangerous the radiation environment at the lunar surface will be for future human explorers.

Polar landing

• It is designed by Houston-based Intuitive Machines and has a similar volume to Peregrine, but in the shape of a tall, hexagonal cylinder.
• Other instruments include a suite of cameras for producing a 3D image of Nova-C’s landing site.
• This will allow scientists to estimate how much material is blown away by the landing rocket’s exhaust plume during the descent.

• The “radio observations of the lunar surface photo-electron sheath” (Rolses) instrument is designed to measure how the extremely tenuous lunar atmosphere and the Moon’s surface dust environment affect radio waves.
• A privately built experiment onboard Nova-C is the International Lunar Observatory ILO-X, which will aim to capture some of the first images of the Milky Way galaxy from the Moon’s surface.

Landing locations

• Peregrine’s landing site is a bay on the west side of Mare Imbrium, known as Sinus Viscositatis (Bay of Stickiness).
• Here, two volcanic mountains called the Gruithuisen Domes are made of a different material to the surrounding plains.

• The landing location for Nova-C is Malapert A crater – which is of particular interest for lunar exploration, as it lies close to the Moon’s south pole.
• Consequently, it is one of the coldest locations in the Solar System and, given the lack of sunlight, a place where water ice delivered by comets hitting the surface over the aeons could remain stable.

• Several other companies are due to launch their first payloads to the Moon in the next couple of years.
• With greater input from private companies – assuming the these first few missions succeed – we may soon witness a new era in lunar exploration.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.