- NASA chief Jared Isaacman warned China could lock US out of lunar south pole if first there
- China’s Change 7 mission targets Shackleton Crater with potential water ice in cold traps
- China’s delayed Change 7 mission includes orbiter, lander, rover, and mobile hopper vehicles
NASA chief Jared Isaacman has warned that China could lock the US out of some of the most valuable real estate on the Moon's south pole if it reaches there first. Speaking at the Off World conference in Houston on Wednesday, Isaacman said China's Chang'e 7 mission had been targeting Shackleton Crater, a prized location that has permanent shadowed regions, known as "cold traps," where it is believed that water, in the form of ice, and other useful material may have accumulated.
Isaacman's statement comes in the backdrop of China delaying its Chang'e 7 mission last month. The mission intends to gather unprecedented data about the lunar surface by using four different robotic vehicles: an orbiter, lander, rover and mobile “hopper”.
“They are targeting the exact same location on lunar south pole,” said Isaacman, as per Ars Technica: "We may have dodged a bullet with the Chang'e 7 mission a couple of weeks ago because that would have gone to the Shackleton crater.”
Isaacman and other US officials increasingly believe that China could establish exclusion zones on the Moon. Safety protocols require one-to-five kilometer exclusion perimeters around landing craft, meaning whoever establishes a presence first could effectively deny access to the rivals.
“It has rovers, it has hopper drones like we now have in development but didn't eight months ago, and could have potentially denied access to some of the most interesting spots,” Isaacman said.
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The NASA boss said China wanted to interact with the water ice on the Moon, learn from it, and recreate their own "Neil Armstrong-like moment" on Mars in the future.
“If you come up short with who comes down the ladder first, the impact is felt around the world,” Isaacman said.
While China delayed the ambitious robotic mission last month, it has opened up the possibility that NASA might reach the terrain first. The initial launch of Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 1 vehicle has been planned for spring 2027, with the large lander expected to carry two NASA probes to the South Pole.
China has been investing heavily to become a major space power, something that has been described by President Xi Jinping as an “eternal dream". It is planning to become the second nation in the world to put its citizens on the Moon after the US' 1972 mission. China's lunar budget is unclear, but reports claim that it could achieve its goal of sending astronauts to the Moon by 2030.
