Exploration of The Moon - Plans

Plans

See also: List of current and future lunar missions

Following the abandoned US Constellation program, plans for manned flights followed by moonbases were declared by Russia, Europe (ESA), China, Japan and India. All of them intend to continue the exploration of Moon with more unmanned spacecraft.

China plans to land the rover Chang'e 3 on the Moon in 2012 or 2013, and to conduct a sample return mission in 2017. If successful, Chang'e 3 will be the first spacecraft to land on lunar surface, since Luna 24 in 1976.

India expects to launch another indigenous lunar mission by 2013 which would place a motorized rover on the surface of the Moon.

Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans a manned lunar landing around 2020 that would lead to a manned lunar base by 2030; however, there is no budget yet for this project and plan reverts to robotic missions.

Russia also announced to resume its previously frozen project Luna-Glob, an unmanned lander and orbiter, which is slated to launch in 2012.

Germany also announced in March 2007 that it will launch a national lunar orbiter, LEO in 2012. However the mission was cancelled due to budgetary constraints.

In August 2007, NASA stated that all future missions and explorations of the Moon will be done entirely using the metric system. This was done to improve cooperation with space agencies of other countries which already use the metric system.

The European Space Agency has also announced its intention to send a manned mission to the Moon, as part of the Aurora programme. In September 2010 the agency introduces a "Lunar lander" programme with a target of autonomous mission to the moon in 2018.

On September 13, 2007, the X Prize Foundation, in concert with Google, Inc., announced the Google Lunar X Prize. This contest requires competitors "to land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing several mission objectives, including roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth."