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 | LUPEX (ISRO lander + JAXA rover) Lunar Polar Exploration Mission Trust: Agency-primary Last verified Remove × | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | SpaceX | JAXA + ISRO | ISRO |
| Prime contractor | SpaceX | JAXA + ISRO | ISRO |
| Status | In development | In development | Landed |
| Customer | NASA-HLS | JAXAISRO | ISRO |
| Launch date | 2027 (NET — Artemis III) | 2028 (NET) | 2023-07-14 |
| Landing date | — | — | 2023-08-23 |
| Landing site | Lunar south pole (NASA-curated candidate region near 84-90°S) | Lunar south pole (permanently shadowed crater margin) | Statio Shiv Shakti, 69.37°S — first soft landing near lunar south pole |
| Payload | ~100 tonnes to lunar surface (sustained variant target) (2024-04-16) | ~350 kg rover with drilling to 1.5 m + ISRO lander (2026-05-28) | Pragyan rover 27 kg + lander Vikram 1,749 kg (2023-08-23) |
| Contract value | $2.89B + $1.15B Option B = $4.04B total (2022-11-15) | — | ₹6.15B (~$75M USD) (2023-07-14) |
| Outcome | Selected April 2021 as sole HLS provider for Artemis III. Architecture requires Super Heavy launch + multiple Starship tanker refueling flights in LEO + transit to NRHO + rendezvous with Orion (SLS). NASA OIG IG-26-004 (March 2026) flagged crew-rescue capability as open risk. October 2025: NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy reopened Artemis III lander contract to competition due to Starship development pace. | 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. | First soft landing near the lunar south pole and first lunar landing by ISRO. Pragyan rover traversed ~100 m over 10 lunar days, confirmed sulfur, aluminium, calcium, iron, chromium, titanium, manganese, silicon, oxygen at the landing site. Lander 'hopped' to a secondary location demonstrating reusable propulsion. |
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.