China's New Moon Mission May Uncover Secrets of Lunar Water Ice
Sarah Shamim
China is preparing to launch Chang'e-7, an ambitious lunar mission targeting the Moon's south pole to search for water ice in permanently shadowed craters. The mission includes a lander, rover, and a novel hopper designed to explore deep craters, potentially enabling future resource extraction.
China is expected to launch its uncrewed Chang'e-7 spacecraft between Monday (August 24) and next Monday (August 31) to search for water ice in permanently shadowed craters at the Moon's south pole. This is China's seventh and most ambitious lunar mission to date.
The mission consists of four main components: an orbiter, a lander, a rover, and a hopper. The orbiter will serve as the primary spacecraft orbiting the Moon, mapping the surface, taking images, and relaying data between Chang'e-7's other components and Earth. The lander will touch down near the rim of Shackleton Crater, a 21-kilometer-wide impact crater near the lunar south pole—an area never before reached by previous missions. The rover will traverse the landing site to analyze rocks and soil. The solar-powered hopper, designed for short flights, will explore the interior of Shackleton Crater.
The existence of water on the Moon has been confirmed by multiple missions over the past two decades. In 2009, NASA deliberately crashed a rocket stage into a shadowed crater to analyze the ejected debris, providing clear direct evidence of significant water ice. By October 2020, NASA scientists announced that water on the Moon is more abundant than previously known, having found water molecules trapped inside mineral grains on the surface and additional water held in permanent shadowed regions.
Learning more about lunar water is crucial: ancient polar ice could preserve a record of volcanic activity and water delivered by comets and asteroids, helping unravel how Earth's oceans formed. If sufficient accessible water exists, it could supply drinking water for crews, serve as coolant for equipment; hydrogen extracted from water could fuel rockets, while oxygen could be used for breathing, supporting missions to Mars or mining operations.
Under the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty, no nation may claim sovereignty or ownership of the Moon. The treaty does not prohibit commercial activities but requires private activities to be authorized and supervised by states, while resource ownership rights remain unresolved.
Before Chang'e-7, Russia's Luna-25 launched in 2023 to find water ice at the lunar south pole but lost control and crashed. Around the same time, India's Chandrayaan-3 landed successfully in August 2023 and found significant new evidence of water on the south pole surface through soil temperature analysis.
The lunar south pole is challenging due to rugged terrain with many craters and deep ravines, unlike the equatorial regions targeted by earlier missions, including the crewed Apollo landings. Chang'e-7's distinction is its six-legged hopper that can jump into and out of deep craters to search for water ice—a type of device never used in any previous lunar mission.
