Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mosaic of the Moon's south polar region, a crush of overlapping crater rims with shadow-filled floors near the pole.
Space news

Chang'e 7 launches this weekend to hunt water ice at the Moon's south pole

This weekend China sends its most complicated Moon mission yet toward the one patch of lunar ground everyone now wants. The launch window for Chang’e 7 opens on the morning of August 24 Beijing time (late Sunday, August 23, in the Americas) on a Long March 5 out of Wenchang. Sitting on top isn’t one spacecraft but four: an orbiter, a lander, a rover, and a six-legged robot built to jump into craters that haven’t seen sunlight in billions of years and drill for ice. ...

August 21, 2026 · 7 min · Andreas Ioannou