Concrete work toward humanity’s first moon base will begin around the lunar south pole this year, NASA leadership announced on May 26.
Beginning this fall and continuing through the end of the year, three unmanned missions will venture to Shackleton Crater, the area of the moon targeted for the first human landing since 1972.
These are the first of more than two dozen missions planned across the next three years, representing hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts awarded to private companies.
Utilizing a variety of landers, rovers, scientific payloads, and cutting-edge robotic technologies, NASA is set to commence serious scouting of the place it picked to host humanity’s first home beyond Earth. …