Pick up to 4 vehicles to compare side-by-side. State lives in the URL — share the link and the comparison loads exactly as you left it. No JavaScript required.
| Attribute | Blue Moon Mark 1 (flight 2) Blue Moon MK1 / VIPER Delivery Trust: Trade-press only Last verified Remove × | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | CNSA | CNSA | Blue Origin |
| Prime contractor | China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) | China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) | Blue Origin |
| Status | In development | Landed | In development |
| Customer | CNSA | CNSA | NASA-CLPS |
| Launch date | 2026-08 (NET) | 2024-05-03 | — |
| Landing date | — | 2024-06-01 | — |
| Landing site | Shackleton crater illuminated rim, lunar south pole | Apollo crater, South Pole-Aitken Basin (lunar far side) | Lunar south pole (VIPER traverse site) |
| Payload | 18 science payloads across orbiter, lander, rover, mini-hopper, and Queqiao-2 (2026-05-28) | 1,935.3 g of lunar far-side regolith returned to Earth (2024-06-25) | VIPER rover (~430 kg dry) (2025-09-19) |
| Contract value | — | — | $190M (2025-09-19) |
| Outcome | China's first dedicated lunar south-pole prospecting mission. Mini-flying probe hops into permanently shadowed regions to sample for water-ice volatiles. Italian laser retroreflector aboard the lander. | First-ever sample return from the lunar far side and the South Pole-Aitken Basin. Used the Queqiao-2 relay satellite for far-side comms. Samples revealed unexpectedly cohesive grain behavior and excavated material from the Moon's mantle. | NASA's CLPS task order awarded 2025-09-19 after pulling VIPER from Griffin. Re-uses second MK1 lander production unit; mission cadence depends on Pathfinder Mission 1 outcome. |
Pure URL state — no JavaScript, no localStorage, no cookies. The comparison renders entirely on the server from the slugs in the query string. Bookmark or share the URL and the comparison reproduces exactly.
Underlying dataset: GET /api/moon/landers. Methodology: /moon/methodology.