Moon mining: Why India, Russia, US and China are eyeing a lunar gold rush?

NEW DELHI: Two days from now, on the eve of India's Independence Day, Isro will perform a complex maneuver to reduce Chandrayaan 3's orbit, bringing India closer to its long-standing dream of a lunar touchdown.

It will be one of the many orbit reduction maneuvers being performed by the space agency to gradually reduce Chandrayaan-3's orbit and position it over the lunar poles.

However, India is not the only country aiming for the Moon.

Besides India, Russia also launched its first Moon-landing spacecraft in over 47 years this week. Meanwhile, US and China are locked in a race to land their astronauts on Moon's south pole before 2030.

So why are these world powers showing a renewed interest in earth's only natural satellite? Because of the elements it holds.

Water

It was India that first made a definitive discovery of water on the Moon. In 2008, Chandrayaan-1 detected hydroxyl molecules spread across the lunar surface and concentrated at the poles.

Water is crucial for human life and also can be a source of hydrogen and oxygen - and these can be used for rocket fuel.

Scientists believe that there is water locked in ice in the perpetual shade of mountain ridges on Moon's south pole.

The Russian space agency, which launched Luna-25, said their first goal is find the water and confirm that it is there. Then, it will study its abundance.



Helium-3
Helium-3 is an isotope of helium that is rare on earth, but Nasa says there are estimates of a million tonnes of it on the Moon.

This isotope could provide nuclear energy in a fusion reactor but since it is not radioactive it would not produce dangerous waste, according to the European Space Agency.




Rare earth metals
Rare earth metals - used in smartphones, computers and advanced technologies - are also present on the Moon, including scandium, yttrium and the 15 lanthanides, according to research by Boeing.

This has sparked interest in the potential extraction and utilisation of these rare metals.

How would Moon mining work?
It is not entirely clear.

Some sort of infrastructure would have to be established on the Moon. The conditions of the Moon mean robots would have to do most of the hard work, though water on the Moon would allow for long-term human presence.

What's the law on lunar mining?
The law is unclear and full of gaps.

The United Nations 1966 Outer Space Treaty says that no nation can claim sovereignty over the Moon - or other celestial bodies - and that the exploration of space should be carried out for the benefit of all countries.

But lawyers say it is unclear whether or not a private entity could claim sovereignty over a part of the Moon.

"Space mining is subject to relatively little existing policy or governance, despite these potentially high stakes," The RAND Corporation said in a blog last year.

The 1979 The Moon Agreement states that no part of the Moon "shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person."

It has not been ratified by any major space power.

What is Chandrayaan-3's mission?

Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. It consists of lander and rover configuration.

The mission objectives of Chandrayaan-3 are to demonstrate safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, to demonstrate rover roving on the Moon, and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.

When will India land on the moon?
According to Isro sources, there will be two more orbit reduction maneuvers to bring the spacecraft closer to the Moon.

These maneuvers will be performed on August 14 and 16 to reach 100 km orbit, following which the landing module, comprising the lander and rover will break away from the propulsion module.

After this, the lander is expected to undergo a "deboost" (the process of slowing down) and make a soft landing on the south polar region of the Moon on August 23.

More about the Moon
The Moon, which is 384,400 km (238,855 miles) from our planet, moderates the earth's wobble on its axis which ensures a more stable climate. It also causes tides in the world's oceans.

Current thinking is that it was formed when a massive thing collided with earth about 4.5 billion years ago. The debris from the collision came together to form the Moon.

Temperatures vary vastly on the lunar surface. In full Sun, they rise to 127 degrees celsius while in darkness they plummet to about minus 173 degrees celsius. The Moon's exosphere does not give protection against radiation from the Sun.

(With inputs from Reuters)