NASA warns China as Beijing eyes same landing sites near Moon's south pole as US

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has lashed out at China to be "open and transparent" about its lunar mission, the Daily Mail reported. This comes after reports claimed that China's potential landing sites on the Moon overlap with the United States. The US-based space agency appeared concerned over destinations on the Moon's south pole.

NASA told DailyMail.com, "Just as the lunar South Pole is of scientific interest to NASA, it is also of scientific interest to other nations, so overlap in potential landing regions is to be expected."

Recently, NASA identified 13 potential landing sites on Mood for the Artemis 3 crewed mission, which is scheduled for 2025. The landing sites were marked as NASA plans to land on the Moon's surface for the time in a half-century.

WithArtemis missions,NASA is planning to build a long-term human presence on the Moon in the coming decades.

If all goes well and Artemis 3 is a success, then it will be the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.

Meanwhile, concerns were raised when a Chinese journal article showed 10 spots on possible lunar landing sites for Chang'e-7 andpicked three sites near the Moon's south pole that were overlapping with the NASA's.

A report by Daily Mail mentioned that both Artemis 3 and Chang’e-7 marked sites near Shackleton, Haworth and Nobile craters as potential landing zones.

The article was authored by Chang'e-4 lunar mission commander Zhang He and others.

Image: A map of the south polar region of the moon showing 13 landing regions NASA is considering for Artemis 3. Credit: NASA

NASA said, "We’ll continue to share our plans with the world as we are able, and hope that other nations will share their plans with us. We encourage transparency and peaceful exploration of space, per the tenets of the Artemis Accords and the Outer Space Treaty."

NASA added, "In exploring the Moon, we will follow what we have spelled out in the Artemis Accords—that we will be transparent about all activities, operate in a safe and responsible manner, and avoid harmful interference."

"We want to be as open with the international community as we can, and as a recent example, we announced 13 candidate landing regions for Artemis 3," the space agency further added.

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