The physical exploration of the Moon began when '' Luna 2'', a

space probe A space probe is an artificial satellite that travels through space to collect scientific data. A space probe may orbit Earth; approach the Moon; travel through interplanetary space; flyby, orbit, or land or fly on other planetary bodies; or ...

launched by the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, made an impact on the surface of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

on September 14, 1959. Prior to that the only available means of exploration had been observation from Earth. The invention of the

optical telescope An optical telescope is a telescope that gathers and focuses light mainly from the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, to create a magnified image for direct visual inspection, to make a photograph, or to collect data through elect ...

brought about the first leap in the quality of lunar observations.

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He wa ...

is generally credited as the first person to use a telescope for astronomical purposes; having made his own telescope in 1609, the mountains and craters on the

lunar surface The geology of the Moon (sometimes called selenology, although the latter term can refer more generally to " lunar science") is quite different from that of Earth. The Moon lacks a true atmosphere, which eliminates erosion due to weather. It does ...

were among his first observations using it.

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

's Apollo program was the only program to successfully land humans on the Moon, which it did six times. The first landing took place in 1969, when

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, ...

astronauts

Buzz Aldrin Buzz Aldrin (; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. As the Lunar Module ''Eagle'' pilot on the 1969 A ...

and Neil Armstrong placed scientific instruments and returned

lunar sample Moon rock or lunar rock is rock originating from Earth's Moon. This includes lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, and rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface and landed on Earth as ...

s to Earth. The first unmanned landing on the

far side of the Moon The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from Earth, opposite to the near side, because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. Compared to the near side, the far side's terrain is rugged, with a multitu ...

was made by the Chinese spacecraft

Chang'e 4 Chang'e 4 (; ) is a robotic spacecraft mission, part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. China achieved humanity's first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, on 3 January 2019. A communication relay satellit ...

in early 2019, which successfully deployed the ''

Yutu-2 ''Yutu-2'' is the robotic lunar rover component of CNSA's Chang'e 4 mission to the Moon, launched on 7 December 2018 18:23 UTC, it entered lunar orbit on 12 December 2018 before making the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon on 3 J ...

'' lunar rover.

Before spaceflight

The

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

philosopher Anaxagoras (d. 428 BC) reasoned that the Sun and Moon were both giant spherical rocks, and that the latter reflected the light of the former. His non-religious view of the heavens was one cause for his imprisonment and eventual exile. In his book ''On the Face in the Moon's Orb'',

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...

suggested that the Moon had deep recesses in which the light of the Sun did not reach and that the spots are nothing but the shadows of rivers or deep chasms. He also entertained the possibility that the Moon was inhabited. Aristarchus went a step further and computed the distance from Earth, together with its size, obtaining a value of 20 times the

Earth radius Earth radius (denoted as ''R''🜨 or R_E) is the distance from the center of Earth to a point on or near its surface. Approximating the figure of Earth by an Earth spheroid, the radius ranges from a maximum of nearly (equatorial radius, deno ...

for the distance (the real value is 60; the Earth radius was roughly known since Eratosthenes). Although the Chinese of the

Han Dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

(202 BC–202 AD) believed the Moon to be energy equated to '' qi'', their 'radiating influence' theory recognized that the light of the Moon was merely a reflection of the Sun (mentioned by Anaxagoras above). This was supported by mainstream thinkers such as

Jing Fang Jing Fang (, 78–37 BC), born Li Fang (), courtesy name Junming (), was born in present-day 東郡頓丘 (Puyang, Puyang, Henan) during the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD). He was a Chinese people, Chinese music theory, music theorist, ma ...

, who noted the sphericity of the Moon. Shen Kuo (1031–1095) of the

Song Dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...

(960–1279) created an allegory equating the waxing and waning of the Moon to a round ball of reflective silver that, when doused with white powder and viewed from the side, would appear to be a crescent. By 499 AD, the Indian astronomer

Aryabhata Aryabhata ( ISO: ) or Aryabhata I (476–550 CE) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer of the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy. He flourished in the Gupta Era and produced works such as the ''Aryabhatiya'' (which ...

mentioned in his '' Aryabhatiya'' that reflected sunlight is what causes the Moon to shine.Hayashi (2008), ''Aryabhata I''

Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi Ahmad ibn 'Abdallah Habash Hasib Marwazi (766 - d. after 869 in Samarra, Iraq ) was a north-eastern Iranian astronomer, geographer, and mathematician from Merv in Khorasan who for the first time described the trigonometric ratios: sine, cosine, ...

, a Persian astronomer, conducted various observations at the Al-Shammisiyyah observatory in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

between 825 and 835 AD. Using these observations, he estimated the Moon's diameter as 3,037 km (equivalent to 1,519 km radius) and its distance from the Earth as . In the 11th century, the Islamic physicist Alhazen investigated moonlight through a number of experiments and observations, concluding it was a combination of the moon's own light and the moon's ability to absorb and emit sunlight. By the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, before the invention of the telescope, an increasing number of people began to recognise the Moon as a sphere, though many believed that it was "perfectly smooth". In 1609,

drew one of the first telescopic drawings of the Moon in his book and noted that it was not smooth but had mountains and craters. Later in the 17th century,

Giovanni Battista Riccioli Giovanni Battista Riccioli, SJ (17 April 1598 – 25 June 1671) was an Italian astronomer and a Catholic priest in the Jesuit order. He is known, among other things, for his experiments with pendulums and with falling bodies, for his discussion ...

and Francesco Maria Grimaldi drew a map of the Moon and gave many craters the names they still have today. On maps, the dark parts of the Moon's surface were called ''maria'' (singular ''mare'') or seas, and the light parts were called ''terrae'' or continents. Galileo's sketches of the moon

Thomas Harriot Thomas Harriot (; – 2 July 1621), also spelled Harriott, Hariot or Heriot, was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer and translator to whom the theory of refraction is attributed. Thomas Harriot was also recognized for his con ...

, as well as Galilei, drew the first telescopic representation of the Moon and observed it for several years. His drawings, however, remained unpublished. The first map of the Moon was made by the Belgian cosmographer and astronomer Michael Florent van Langren in 1645. Two years later a much more influential effort was published by

Johannes Hevelius Johannes Hevelius Some sources refer to Hevelius as Polish: * * * * * * * Some sources refer to Hevelius as German: * * * * *of the Royal Society * (in German also known as ''Hevel''; pl, Jan Heweliusz; – 28 January 1687) was a councillor ...

. In 1647 Hevelius published '' Selenographia'', the first treatise entirely devoted to the Moon. Hevelius's nomenclature, although used in

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

countries until the eighteenth century, was replaced by the system published in 1651 by the Jesuit astronomer

, who gave the large naked-eye spots the names of seas and the telescopic spots (now called craters) the name of philosophers and astronomers. Micrographia Schem 38

In 1753 the Croatian Jesuit and astronomer

Roger Joseph Boscovich Roger Joseph Boscovich ( hr, Ruđer Josip Bošković; ; it, Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich; la, Rogerius (Iosephus) Boscovicius; sr, Руђер Јосип Бошковић; 18 May 1711 – 13 February 1787) was a physicist, astronomer, ...

discovered the absence of atmosphere on the Moon. In 1824

Franz von Gruithuisen Baron Franz von Paula (Franciscus de Paula) Gruithuisen (19 March 1774 – 21 June 1852) was a Bavarian physician and astronomer. He taught medical students before becoming a professor of astronomy at the University of Munich in 1826. During hi ...

explained the formation of craters as a result of meteorite strikes. The possibility that the Moon contains vegetation and is inhabited by selenites was seriously considered by major astronomers even into the first decades of the 19th century. In 1834–1836,

Wilhelm Beer Wilhelm Wolff Beer (4 January 1797 – 27 March 1850) was a banker and astronomer from Berlin, Prussia, and the brother of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Astronomy Beer's fame derives from his hobby, astronomy. He built a private observatory with a ...

and

Johann Heinrich Mädler Johann, typically a male given name, is the German form of ''Iohannes'', which is the Latin form of the Greek name ''Iōánnēs'' (), itself derived from Hebrew name ''Yochanan'' () in turn from its extended form (), meaning "Yahweh is Gracious" ...

published their four-volume and the book in 1837, which firmly established the conclusion that the Moon has no bodies of water nor any appreciable atmosphere. John W Draper-The first Moon Photograph 1840

John W Draper-The first Moon Photograph 1840

Space race

The Cold War-inspired "

space race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the t ...

" and "

Moon race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the tw ...

" between the

and the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

accelerated with a focus on the Moon. This included many scientifically important firsts, such as the first photographs of the then-unseen

in 1959 by the Soviet Union, and culminated with the landing of the first humans on the Moon in 1969, widely seen around the world as one of the pivotal events of the 20th century, and indeed of human history in general. Luna 3 moon

RIAN archive 510848 Interplanetary station Luna 1 - blacked

Luna-3 (Memorial Museum of Astronautics)

left, 250px, First photo ever taken from the surface of the Moon, by Luna 9 in February 1966. Laika ac Memorial Museum of Astronautics (6995740711)

The first artificial object to fly by the

was uncrewed Soviet probe

Luna 1 ''Luna 1'', also known as ''Mechta'' (russian: Мечта , '' lit.'': ''Dream''), ''E-1 No.4'' and ''First Lunar Rover'', was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of Earth's Moon, and the first spacecraft to be placed in heliocentric or ...

on January 4, 1959 and went on to be the first probe to reach a heliocentric orbit around the Sun. Few knew that Luna 1 was designed to impact the surface of the Moon. The first probe to impact the surface of the Moon was the Soviet probe Luna 2, which made a hard landing on September 14, 1959, at 21:02:24 UTC. The far side of the Moon was first photographed on October 7, 1959, by the Soviet probe

Luna 3 Luna 3, or E-2A No.1 ( rus, Луна 3}) was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1959 as part of the Luna programme. It was the first mission to photograph the far side of the Moon and the third Soviet space probe to be sent to the neighborhood of th ...

. Though vague by today's standards, the photos showed that the far side of the Moon almost completely lacked

maria Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial * 170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 * Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, ...

. The first American probe to fly by the Moon was

Pioneer 4 Pioneer 4 was an American spin-stabilized uncrewed spacecraft launched as part of the Pioneer program on a lunar flyby trajectory and into a heliocentric orbit making it the first probe of the United States to escape from the Earth's gravity. ...

on March 4, 1959 which occurred shortly after Luna 1. But it was the only success of 8 American probes that first attempted to launch for the Moon. In an effort to compete with these Soviet successes, U.S. President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

proposed the manned Moon landing in a ''Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs'':

Now it is time to take longer strides - time for a great new American enterprise - time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth.
...For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last.
...I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.
...let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action—a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs...

Ranger 1 Ranger 1 was a prototype spacecraft launched as part of the Ranger program of unmanned space missions. Its primary mission was to test the performance of those functions and parts necessary for carrying out subsequent lunar and planetary missio ...

launched in August 1961, just 3 months after President Kennedy's speech. It would be 3 more years and six failed Ranger missions until

Ranger 7 Ranger 7 was the first space probe of the United States to successfully transmit close images of the lunar surface back to Earth. It was also the first completely successful flight of the Ranger program. Launched on July 28, 1964, Ranger 7 was d ...

returned close up photos of the Lunar surface before impacting it in July 1964. A number of problems with launch vehicles, ground equipment, and spacecraft electronics plagued the

Ranger program The Ranger program was a series of unmanned space missions by the United States in the 1960s whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to take images of the lunar surf ...

and early probe missions in general. These lessons helped in

Mariner 2 Mariner 2 (Mariner-Venus 1962), an American space probe to Venus, was the first robotic space probe to conduct a successful planetary encounter. The first successful spacecraft in the NASA Mariner program, it was a simplified version of the B ...

, the only successful U.S. space probe after Kennedy's famous speech to congress and before his death in November 1963. U.S. success rates improved greatly from

onward. In 1966 the USSR accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the lunar surface during the

Luna 9 Luna 9 (Луна-9), internal designation Ye-6 No.13, was an uncrewed space mission of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. On 3 February 1966, the Luna 9 spacecraft became the first spacecraft to achieve a survivable landing on a celestial body ...

and

Luna 13 Luna 13 (E-6M series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program. Overview The Luna 13 spacecraft was launched toward the Moon from an Earth-orbiting platform and accomplished a soft landing on 24 December 1966, in the region of Oceanus P ...

missions. The U.S. followed Ranger with the

Surveyor program The Surveyor program was a NASA program that, from June 1966 through January 1968, sent seven robotic spacecraft to the surface of the Moon. Its primary goal was to demonstrate the feasibility of soft landings on the Moon. The Surveyor craft w ...

sending seven robotic spacecraft to the surface of the Moon. Five of the seven spacecraft successfully soft-landed, investigating if the

regolith Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestr ...

(dust) was shallow enough for astronauts to stand on the Moon. On December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8,

Frank Borman Frank Frederick Borman II (born March 14, 1928) is a retired United States Air Force (USAF) colonel (United States), colonel, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, businessman, and NASA astronaut. He was the commander of Apollo 8, the first missio ...

James Lovell James Arthur Lovell Jr. (; born March 25, 1928) is an American retired astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became, with Frank Borman and William Anders, one of the f ...

and

William Anders William Alison Anders (born 17 October 1933) is a retired United States Air Force (USAF) major general, former electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, he was a member of the crew of Apollo 8, t ...

, became the first human beings to enter lunar orbit and see the far side of the Moon in person. Humans first landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The first human to walk on the lunar surface was Neil Armstrong, commander of the U.S. mission

. The first robot

lunar rover A lunar rover or Moon rover is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of the Moon. The Apollo Program's Lunar Roving Vehicle was driven on the Moon by members of three American crews, Apollo 15, 16, and 17. Other rov ...

to land on the Moon was the Soviet vessel

Lunokhod 1 ''Lunokhod 1'' ( Russian: Луноход-1 ("Moonwalker 1"), also known as Аппарат 8ЕЛ № 203 ("Device 8EL No. 203")) was the first of two robotic lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of its Lunokhod program. The ...

on November 17, 1970, as part of the

Lunokhod programme Lunokhod ( rus, Луноход, p=lʊnɐˈxot, "Moonwalker") was a series of Soviet robotic lunar rovers designed to land on the Moon between 1969 and 1977. Lunokhod 1 was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on an extraterrestria ...

. To date, the last human to stand on the Moon was

Eugene Cernan Eugene Andrew Cernan (; March 14, 1934 – January 16, 2017) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the eleventh human being t ...

, who as part of the Apollo 17 mission, walked on the Moon in December 1972. Moon rock samples were brought back to Earth by three Luna missions (

Luna 16 ''Luna 16'' was an uncrewed space mission, part of the Soviet Luna program. It was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and return a sample of lunar soil to Earth. The 101 grams (3.56 ounces) sample was returned from Mare Fecunditatis. ...

, 20, and 24) and the Apollo missions 11 through 17 (except Apollo 13, which aborted its planned lunar landing).

Luna 24 ''Luna 24'' was a robotic probe of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. The last of the Luna series of spacecraft, the mission of the ''Luna 24'' probe was the third Soviet mission to return lunar soil samples from the Moon (the first two sampl ...

in 1976 was the last Lunar mission by either the Soviet Union or the U.S. until

Clementine A clementine (''Citrus × clementina'') is a tangor, a citrus fruit hybrid between a willowleaf mandarin orange ( ''C.'' × ''deliciosa'') and a sweet orange (''C. × sinensis''), named in honor of Clément Rodier, a French missionary who fir ...

in 1994. Focus shifted to: probes to other planets,

space stations A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station is ...

, and the Shuttle program. Before the Moon race the U.S. had pre-projects for scientific and military moonbases: the

Lunex Project The Lunex Project was a US Air Force 1958 plan for a crewed lunar landing prior to the Apollo Program. The final lunar expedition plan in 1961 was for a 21-person underground Air Force base on the Moon by 1968 at a total cost of $7.5 billion. Th ...

and

Project Horizon Project Horizon was a 1959 study to determine the feasibility of constructing a scientific / military base on the Moon, at a time when the U.S. Department of the Army, Department of the Navy, and Department of the Air Force had total responsibi ...

. Besides crewed landings, the abandoned

Soviet crewed lunar programs The Soviet crewed lunar programs were a series of programs pursued by the Soviet Union to land humans on the Moon, in competition with the United States Apollo program. The Soviet government publicly denied participating in such a competitio ...

included the building of a multipurpose moonbase " Zvezda", the first detailed project, complete with developed mockups of expedition vehicles and surface modules.

After 1990

In 1990 Japan visited the Moon with the ''

Hiten Hiten may refer to: * Hiten (name), Indian given name * Hiten (spacecraft), Japanese lunar probe *Tennin , which may include , , and the specifically female version, the , are a divine kind of spiritual beings found in Japanese Buddhism, the ...

'' spacecraft, becoming the third country to place an object in orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft released the Hagoromo probe into lunar orbit, but the transmitter failed, thereby preventing further scientific use of the spacecraft. In September 2007, Japan launched the ''

SELENE In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Selene (; grc-gre, Σελήνη , meaning "Moon"''A Greek–English Lexicon's.v. σελήνη) is the goddess and the personification of the Moon. Also known as Mene, she is traditionally the daughter of ...

'' spacecraft, with the objectives "to obtain scientific data of the lunar origin and evolution and to develop the technology for the future lunar exploration", according to the JAXA official website. The European Space Agency launched a small, low-cost lunar orbital probe called

SMART 1 The Smart #1 (stylised as "smart #1") is a battery electric subcompact crossover SUV developed and produced by Smart Automobile, a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz Group and Geely Holding. It is the first vehicle produced by the joint vent ...

on September 27, 2003. SMART 1's primary goal was to take three-dimensional

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

and infrared imagery of the lunar surface. SMART 1 entered lunar

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as ...

on November 15, 2004 and continued to make observations until September 3, 2006, when it was intentionally crashed into the lunar surface in order to study the impact plume.

Planned commercial missions

In 2007, the X Prize Foundation together with

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

launched the

Google Lunar X Prize The Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP), sometimes referred to as Moon 2.0, was a 2007–2018 inducement prize space competition organized by the X Prize Foundation, and sponsored by Google. The challenge called for privately funded teams to be the ...

to encourage commercial endeavors to the Moon. A prize of $20 million was to be awarded to the first private venture to get to the Moon with a robotic lander by the end of March 2018, with additional prizes worth $10 million for further milestones. As of August 2016, 16 teams were reportedly participating in the competition. In January 2018 the foundation announced that the prize would go unclaimed as none of the finalist teams would be able to make a launch attempt by the deadline. In August 2016, the US government granted permission to US-based start-up Moon Express to land on the Moon. This marked the first time that a private enterprise was given the right to do so. The decision is regarded as a precedent helping to define regulatory standards for deep-space commercial activity in the future. Previously, private companies were restricted to operating on or around Earth. On 29 November 2018 NASA announced that nine commercial companies would compete to win a contract to send small payloads to the Moon in what is known as

Commercial Lunar Payload Services Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA program to contract transportation services able to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon's south polar region mostly with the goals of scouting for lunar resources, testing in sit ...

. According to NASA administrator

Jim Bridenstine James Frederick Bridenstine (born June 15, 1975) is an American military officer and politician who served as the 13th administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Bridenstine was the United States representative f ...

, "We are building a domestic American capability to get back and forth to the surface of the moon.". China has begun the

Chinese Lunar Exploration Program The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP; ), also known as the Chang'e Project () after the Chinese moon goddess Chang'e, is an ongoing series of robotic Moon missions by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The program incorpor ...

for exploring the Moon and is investigating the prospect of lunar mining, specifically looking for the

isotope Isotopes are two or more types of atoms that have the same atomic number (number of protons in their nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemical element), and that differ in nucleon numbers (mass numb ...

helium-3 for use as an energy source on Earth. China launched the

Chang'e 1 Chang'e 1 (; ) was an unmanned Chinese lunar-orbiting spacecraft, part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. The spacecraft was named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang'e. Chang'e 1 was launched on 24 October 2007 at 1 ...

robotic lunar

orbiter A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to spaceflight, fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth ...

on October 24, 2007. Originally planned for a one-year mission, the Chang'e 1 mission was very successful and ended up being extended for another four months. On March 1, 2009, Chang'e 1 was intentionally impacted on the lunar surface completing the 16-month mission. On October 1, 2010, China launched the

Chang'e 2 Chang'e 2 (; ) is a Chinese unmanned lunar probe that was launched on 1 October 2010. It was a follow-up to the Chang'e 1 lunar probe, which was launched in 2007. Chang'e 2 was part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, ...

lunar orbiter. China landed the

rover Rover may refer to: People * Constance Rover (1910–2005), English historian * Jolanda de Rover (born 1963), Dutch swimmer * Rover Thomas (c. 1920–1998), Indigenous Australian artist Places * Rover, Arkansas, US * Rover, Missouri, US ...

Chang'e 3 Chang'e 3 (; ) is a robotic lunar exploration mission operated by the China National Space Administration (CNSA), incorporating a robotic lander and China's first lunar rover. It was launched in December 2013 as part of the second phase of t ...

on the Moon on December 14, 2013, became the third country to have done so. Chang'e 3 is the first spacecraft to soft-land on lunar surface since

in 1976. Since the Chang'e 3 mission was a success, the backup lander Chang'e 4 was re-purposed for the new mission goals. China launched on 7 December 2018 the

mission to the lunar farside. On 3 January 2019, Chang'e 4 landed on the far side of the Moon. Chang'e 4 deployed the

moon rover, which subsequently became the current record distance-holder for lunar surface travel. Among other discoveries, Yutu-2 found that the dust at some locations of the far side of the Moon is up to 12 meters deep. India's national space agency, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), launched

Chandrayaan-1 Chandrayaan-1 (, ) was the first Indian lunar probe under the Chandrayaan program. It was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation in October 2008, and operated until August 2009. The mission included a lunar orbiter and an impact ...

, an uncrewed lunar orbiter, on October 22, 2008. The lunar probe was originally intended to orbit the Moon for two years, with scientific objectives to prepare a three-dimensional atlas of the near and far side of the Moon and to conduct a chemical and mineralogical mapping of the lunar surface. The orbiter released the

Moon Impact Probe The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), India's national space agency, was a lunar probe that was released by ISRO's Chandrayaan-1 lunar remote sensing orbiter which in turn was launched, on 22 O ...

which impacted the Moon at 15:04 GMT on November 14, 2008 making India the fourth country to reach the lunar surface. Among Chandrayaan's many achievements was the discovery of the widespread presence of water molecules in the lunar soil. This mission was followed up by

Chandrayaan-2 Chandrayaan-2 (, ; ) is the second lunar exploration mission developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), after Chandrayaan-1. It consists of a lunar orbiter, and also included the ''Vikram'' lander, and the ''Pragyan'' lunar ...

which launched on 22 July 2019 and entered lunar orbit on 20 August 2019. Chandrayaan-2 also carried India's first lander and rover, but these crash-landed. Animation of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter trajectory

Animation of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter trajectory

The

Ballistic Missile Defense Organization The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) was an agency of the United States Department of Defense that began on 20 May 1974 with the responsibility for all U.S. ballistic missile defense efforts. It was renamed the Missile Defense Age ...

and NASA launched the

Clementine mission ''Clementine'' (officially called the Deep Space Program Science Experiment (DSPSE)) was a joint space project between the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (previously the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization) and NASA, launched ...

in 1994, and Lunar Prospector in 1998. NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, on June 18, 2009, which has collected imagery of the Moon's surface. It also carried the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite ( LCROSS), which investigated the possible existence of water in

Cabeus crater Cabeus is a Lunar craters, lunar impact crater that is located about from the Lunar south pole, south pole of the Moon. At this location the crater is seen obliquely from Earth, and it is almost Crater of eternal darkness, perpetually in deep sh ...

GRAIL The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) was an American lunar science mission in NASA's Discovery Program which used high-quality gravitational field mapping of the Moon to determine its interior structure. The two small spacecraf ...

is another mission, launched in 2011. The first commercial mission to the Moon was accomplished by the

Manfred Memorial Moon Mission Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (4M) was the first private lunar probe to successfully fly by the Moon. It was led by LuxSpace, a child company of German OHB System, and named in honor of OHB Systems founder, professor Manfred Fuchs, who died in 2 ...

(4M), led by LuxSpace, an affiliate of German OHB AG. The mission was launched on 23 October 2014 with the Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 test spacecraft, attached to the upper stage of a

Long March 3C The Long March 3C (), also known as the Changzheng 3C, CZ-3C and LM-3C, is a Chinese orbital launch vehicle. It is launched from Launch Complex 2 and 3 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC). A three-stage rocket with two strapon liquid ...

/G2 rocket. The 4M spacecraft made a Moon flyby on a night of 28 October 2014, after which it entered elliptical Earth orbit, exceeding its designed lifetime by four times. The

Beresheet ''Beresheet'' ( he, בְּרֵאשִׁית, ''Bərēšīṯ'', "In the beginning"; Book of Genesis) was a demonstrator of a small robotic lunar lander and lunar probe operated by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries. Its aims included insp ...

lander operated by

Israel Aerospace Industries Israel Aerospace Industries (Hebrew: התעשייה האווירית לישראל ''ha-ta'asiya ha-avirit le-yisra'el'') or IAI (תע"א) is Israel's major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, producing aerial and astronautic systems for both mi ...

and

SpaceIL SpaceIL is an Israeli organization, established in 2011, that competed in the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) contest to land a spacecraft on the Moon. SpaceIL successfully launched its '' Beresheet'' lander on 22 February 2019 at 01:45 UTC; it en ...

impacted the Moon on 11 April 2019 after a failed landing attempt. China planned to conduct a

sample return mission A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as lo ...

with its

Chang'e 5 Chang'e 5 () was the fifth lunar exploration mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, and China's first lunar sample-return mission. Like its predecessors, the spacecraft is named after the Chinese moon goddess Chang'e. It launched ...

spacecraft in 2017, but that mission was postponed due to the failure of the

Long March 5 Long March 5 (LM-5; zh, s=长征五号 , p=Chángzhēng wǔ hào), or Changzheng 5 (CZ-5), and also by its nickname "''Pang-Wu''" (胖五, "''Fat-Five''"), is a Chinese heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehic ...

launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload ( spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and ...

. However, after a successful return of flight by the Long March 5 rocket in late December, 2019, China targeted its

sample return mission for late 2020. China completed this mission on 16 December 2020 with the return of approximately 2 kilograms of lunar sample.

Plans

Following the abandoned US

Constellation program The Constellation program (abbreviated CxP) was a crewed spaceflight program developed by NASA, the space agency of the United States, from 2005 to 2009. The major goals of the program were "completion of the International Space Station" and a " ...

, plans for crewed flights followed by

moonbase A moonbase is a facility on the surface of the Moon, enabling human activity on the Moon. As such, it is different from a lunar space station in orbit around the Moon, like the planned Lunar Gateway of the Artemis program. Moonbases can be fo ...

s were declared by Russia,

ESA , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

, China, Japan and India. All of them intend to continue the exploration of Moon with more uncrewed spacecraft. India is planning to launch the

Chandrayaan-3 Chandrayaan-3 (, ; ) is a planned third lunar exploration mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Following Chandrayaan-2, where a last-minute glitch in the soft landing guidance software led to the failure of the lander's s ...

lander mission in 2023, and it is studying a potential collaboration with Japan to launch the

Lunar Polar Exploration Mission The Lunar Polar Exploration mission (LUPEX), also known as Chandrayaan-4, is a robotic lunar mission concept by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that would send a lunar rover and lander t ...

in 2024. Russia also announced plans to resume its previously frozen project

Luna-Glob Luna-Glob (russian: Луна-Глоб, meaning ''Lunar sphere'') is a Moon exploration programme by Roscosmos meant to progress toward the creation of a fully robotic lunar base. When completed, the programme will continue with crewed lunar miss ...

, an uncrewed lander and orbiter, which was slated to launch in 2021 but which did not happen. In 2015,

Roscosmos The State Space Corporation "Roscosmos" (russian: Государственная корпорация по космической деятельности «Роскосмос»), commonly known simply as Roscosmos (russian: Роскосмос) ...

stated that Russia plans to place an astronaut on the Moon by 2030 leaving Mars to NASA. The purpose is to work jointly with NASA and avoid a space race. A Russian

Lunar Orbital Station The Lunar Orbital Station (russian: Лунная Орбитальная Станция, Lunnaya Orbital'naya Stantsiya; LOS) is a proposed Russian space station in orbit around the Moon. The design was presented in 2007 at a conference at the Ga ...

has been proposed to orbit around the Moon after 2030. In 2018 NASA released plans to return to the Moon with commercial and international partners as part of an overall agency Exploration Campaign in support of Space Policy Directive 1, giving rise to the

Artemis program The Artemis program is a robotic and human Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) along with three partner agencies: European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration ...

and the

(CLPS). NASA plans to start with robotic missions on the lunar surface, as well as the crewed

Lunar Gateway The Lunar Gateway, or simply Gateway, is the first planned extraterrestrial space station in lunar orbit intended to serve as a solar-powered communication hub, science laboratory, and short-term habitation module for government-agency astr ...

. As of 2019, NASA is issuing contracts to develop new small lunar payload delivery services, develop lunar landers, and conduct more research on the Moon's surface ahead of a human return. Artemis program involves several flights of the

Orion spacecraft Orion (officially Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or Orion MPCV) is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA's Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin and the Euro ...

and lunar landings from 2022 to 2028. On November 3, 2021 NASA announced it had picked a landing site in the lunar south polar region near the crater Shackleton for an unmanned spacecraft that included NASA's Polar Resources Ice-Mining Experiment-1. The precise location was termed the Shackleton Connecting Ridge, which features the advantage of near-continuous solar exposure and line-of-sight with Earth for communication.

References

External links

An interactive web documentary about the Moon
– ESA

– NASA {{Authority control Exploration of Moon Spaceflight Moon