The nations propelling missions to the Moon and past in 2023

Missions to the Moon and further into deep space will be launched in 2023 by Russia, India, and the European Space Agency.

Who is carrying out lunar missions?

In June 2023, India intends to send the Chandrayaan 3 mission to the Moon, which will use a landing module and robotic rover to investigate the lunar surface. Chandrayaan 1 was India's first lunar mission in 2008.

The Luna 25 mission, which Russia intends to launch in July 2023, will place a probe on the Moon to collect samples from its southern polar region.

In the latter half of 2023, SpaceX intends to take Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and eight other people on the dearMoon Voyage mission around the Moon. Its Starship, which can carry 100 people, would be used for the first time on this mission.

The United States space agency Nasa intends to carry out its subsequent mission to the Moon in 2024. It will require astronauts to orbit the Moon and is called Artemis II.

The US Agency's Artemis III mission is scheduled to launch in 2025 or 2026, bringing the first woman and first person of color to the Moon.

Since the end of Nasa's Apollo missions in 1972, this will be the first time humans have walked on the Moon. The Space X Starship will be utilized for the mission, according to Nasa.

China and Russia have announced plans to establish a joint lunar base by 2035, but no timetable has been established for the endeavor.

Why are countries returning to the Moon?

According to Dr. McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the United States, the goal of space powers like the United States, Russia, and China is to establish bases on the Moon where astronauts can live.

According to him, "The Moon is being used as a stepping stone to places like Mars." It is an excellent location for testing deep space technologies."

According to Dr. Lucinda King, a space project manager at the University of Portsmouth, launching a spacecraft into deep space from the Moon also requires less fuel than doing so from Earth.

She adds that a fuel source on the Moon has been discovered.

Dr. King asserts, "It is known there is water at the south pole of the Moon." This could be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, which could be used to refuel spacecraft for Mars and other destinations."

"That is one motivation behind why there's a hurry to return to the Moon - to have a special interest in the water there."

What other missions to space are being planned for 2023?

In the summer of 2023, Nasa will launch its Psyche spacecraft to investigate the asteroid 16 Psyche, which is believed to be the relic of a planet formed in the earliest days of the solar system.

The Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) will be launched in April 2023 by the European Space Agency (Esa), which is supported by 22 European nations.

The water ice that is thought to be beneath the surface of Ganymede, Callistro, and Europa, three of Jupiter's moons, will be examined by the spacecraft for evidence of life.

In any case, in fight at Russia's intrusion of Ukraine, Esa will never again utilize a Russian rocket to put its Euclid space telescope into space one year from now. Instead, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will be used.

Additionally, it has stopped collaborating with Russia on the ExoMars mission, which aims to send a rover to Mars, putting off the launch until 2028.

In order to map distant stars and black holes, China intends to launch a telescope known as Xuntian into low Earth orbit in December 2023.

It has launched a scientific research station into space known as Tiangong and has already landed robotic rovers and probes on Mars and the Moon.