Space travel Nasa identifies nine potential lunar landing sites

In the search for a landing site for the first manned lunar mission in more than half a century, Nasa has selected nine possible locations. The sites are all located in the region of the south pole of the Earth's satellite, where astronauts have never been before.

They will now be explored further before a final decision is made, the US space agency announced.

"The south pole of the moon is a completely different environment to the one we landed in during the Apollo missions," said Nasa scientist Sarah Noble. "It gives us access to some of the oldest regions of the Moon as well as cold, shadowed regions that could contain water and other components. Any of these landing sites would allow us to do great research and make new discoveries."

The goal is a moon base

With the "Artemis" program, named after the Greek goddess of the moon, NASA wants to put humans back on the moon - including the first non-white human and the first woman. The long-term goal of "Artemis" is to establish a permanent lunar base as a foundation for missions to Mars.

However, due to problems with the rocket and spacecraft, NASA had to postpone the manned moon orbit "Artemis 2", which was originally planned for November 2024, to September 2025, and the planned manned moon landing "Artemis 3" to September 2026. There is competition from China, which wants to put humans on the moon by 2030. The last time humans were on the moon was in 1972 as part of NASA's "Apollo" missions.

SDA