Choosing right location for Artemis base camp on Moon isn’t a cakewalk

NASA plans to land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024 with the Artemis programme, scientists and engineers are helping NASA determine the precise location of the Artemis Base Camp concept as several factors are needed to be considered to pick the right site.

Among the many things NASA must take into account in choosing a specific location are two key features – the site must bask in near continuous sunlight to power the base and moderate extreme temperature swings, and it must offer easy access to areas of complete darkness that hold water ice, NASA said on Wednesday.

American astronauts in 2024 will take their first steps near the Moon’s South Pole: the land of extreme light, extreme darkness, and frozen water that could fuel NASA’s Artemis lunar base and the agency’s leap into deep space.

While the South Pole region has many well-illuminated areas, some parts see more or less light than others. Scientists have found that at some higher elevations, such as on crater rims, astronauts would see longer periods of light. But the bottoms of some deep craters are shrouded in near constant darkness, since sunlight at the South Pole strikes at such a low angle it only brushes their rims. These unique lighting conditions have to do with the Moon's tilt and with the topography of the South Pole region.

Unlike Earth’s 23.5-degree tilt, the Moon is tilted only 1.5 degrees on its axis. As a result, neither of the Moon’s hemispheres tips noticeably toward or away from the Sun throughout the year as it does on Earth. “It's such a dramatic terrain down there,” W. Brent Garry, a geologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. While a base camp site will require lots of light, it is also important for astronauts to be able to take short trips into permanently dark craters.