What next?

Looking at the dozens of future Moon missions still in the planning stages, two trends are clear. First, there’s the increasing internationalism of the field, with Canada, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and even a resurgent Russia keen to embark on their own programs of lunar exploration. The second even-more-exciting trend is the ever-growing prospect of a return to crewed Moon missions in the near future. Here’s a quick rundown of the strongest contenders:

Space tourism

SpaceX’s Starship, currently under development, should make sightseeing trips around the Moon – following the same there-and-back route taken by Zond 5’s tortoises – a real possibility for super-rich tourists. The first one has already booked a ticket: Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa.

Chinese ambitions

With its successful rover and sample-return missions, China now looks to be the world leader in robotic Moon missions. But the country’s plans don’t stop there, and it’s already developing a new generation of crewed spacecraft that could take Chinese astronauts to the Moon in the 2030s.

A gateway in space

NASA has plans to construct a smaller scale version of the International Space Station to place in lunar orbit. Called Gateway, the first elements of this lunar space station are scheduled to be launched by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in 2024. Gateway is an enabler for a much more ambitious NASA project: the Artemis lander.

The heirs to Apollo

The aim of the Artemis program is to land the next astronauts – including the first woman and the first person of colour – on the Moon by 2024. That’s a tight timescale, but the plan is for the landing to be preceded by just two test flights: an uncrewed circumlunar mission and a crewed one. The third flight will be the landing itself, using a variant of SpaceX’s Starship.