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| Attribute | LUPEX (ISRO lander + JAXA rover) Lunar Polar Exploration Mission Trust: Agency-primary Last verified Remove × | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | Astrobotic | CNSA | JAXA + ISRO |
| Prime contractor | Astrobotic | China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) | JAXA + ISRO |
| Status | In development | Landed | In development |
| Customer | NASA-CLPS | CNSA | JAXAISRO |
| Launch date | 2026-07 (NET) | 2024-05-03 | 2028 (NET) |
| Landing date | — | 2024-06-01 | — |
| Landing site | Lunar south pole region | Apollo crater, South Pole-Aitken Basin (lunar far side) | Lunar south pole (permanently shadowed crater margin) |
| Payload | Venturi Astrolab FLIP rover + mass-simulator + secondary payloads (2026-05-28) | 1,935.3 g of lunar far-side regolith returned to Earth (2024-06-25) | ~350 kg rover with drilling to 1.5 m + ISRO lander (2026-05-28) |
| Contract value | $199.5M (2020-06-11) | — | — |
| Outcome | NASA cancelled VIPER July 2024 citing cost overruns; saved ~$84M vs ~$104M completion cost. Astrobotic retained the lander demonstration task. Mission slipped from late 2025 to NET July 2026. FLIP rover (Venturi Astrolab) selected as replacement manifest. | 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. | 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.