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| Attribute | LUPEX (ISRO lander + JAXA rover) Lunar Polar Exploration Mission Trust: Agency-primary Last verified Remove × | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | CNSA | ispace | JAXA + ISRO |
| Prime contractor | China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) | ispace | JAXA + ISRO |
| Status | In development | Lost | In development |
| Customer | CNSA | private | JAXAISRO |
| Launch date | 2026-08 (NET) | 2022-12-11 | 2028 (NET) |
| Landing date | — | 2023-04-25 | — |
| Landing site | Shackleton crater illuminated rim, lunar south pole | Atlas crater, Mare Frigoris (planned; impacted at altitude ~5 km) | Lunar south pole (permanently shadowed crater margin) |
| Payload | 18 science payloads across orbiter, lander, rover, mini-hopper, and Queqiao-2 (2026-05-28) | Rashid rover (10 kg, UAE/MBRSC) + Sora-Q (0.25 kg, JAXA) + commercial (2023-04-25) | ~350 kg rover with drilling to 1.5 m + ISRO lander (2026-05-28) |
| Contract value | — | — | — |
| 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. | Travelled ~1.4M km — at the time, furthest a privately funded spacecraft had flown. Software flagged the radar altimeter as faulty after the lander crossed a crater rim cliff and ignored its readings. Lander ran out of fuel hovering ~5 km above surface and free-fell. | Joint ISRO-JAXA water-ice prospecting mission, designated Chandrayaan-5 by India. India's cabinet approved Phase A on 2025-03-10. Launches on JAXA's H3. Carries American and European instruments alongside Indian and Japanese ones. |
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Underlying dataset: GET /api/moon/landers. Methodology: /moon/methodology.