2025 is almost halfway through, and we’ve already seen a raft of lunar exploration achievements and developments from organizations worldwide. Here’s a curated list of them all, each linked for understanding the context of its development. If someone asks you what’s happening at the Moon, say all of this is. 🌗

China

Chinese researchers published a range of papers on their recent lunar exploration outcomes as well as ongoing scoping of future ambitions. This includes unique results from lun§ar farside samples brought to Earth last year by CNSA’s Chang’e 6 mission, such as confirming that our young Moon was fully molten, determining the age of the Moon’s largest impact basin, and that the farside mantle contains less water than within the nearside. All of these are helping scientists understand our Moon’s evolution and why its farside is so different from the nearside we know and see—and what it all tells us about the evolution of our Solar System.

China also announced the first set of international organizations whose proposals were selected to study unique lunar samples fetched to Earth by CNSA’s Chang’e 5 mission in 2020.
China cemented and further advanced its lead in building a lunar communications and navigation network. The DRO-A and DRO-B twin satellite pair demonstrated automated navigation at the Moon—despite a failure of their launch vehicle’s upper stage leaving them stranded in Earth orbit and causing structural damage. China also achieved the first ever daytime Earth-Moon laser distance measurements with a retroreflector on the Tiandu 1 lunar orbiter. This was accomplished despite massive interference from our Sun.
Building on international cooperation in the upcoming Chang’e 7 mission, CNSA announced more international payloads that will be onboard Chang’e 8 to explore the Moon’s south pole for water ice and other resources.
In February, the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) announced a call for Chinese organizations to bid for making a lunar mapping satellite in support of China’s crewed landing missions which start later this decade. The satellite’s mandate is to obtain high-precision mineral, topographic, and geomorphic data of the Moon’s low-latitude regions.

The US

CLPS

Shadows of the Firefly Blue Ghost Moon lander performing final descent and having touched down on the lunar surface. Images: Blue Ghost landing video

With rigor and abundant caution, Firefly’s Blue Ghost spacecraft part of NASA’s CLPS program brought the first true soft landing for the US in the 21st century, involving operations of its science & technology payloads, a precision landing demonstration, the first GPS/GNSS lock on the Moon, and a stunning solar eclipse capture.
In March, Intuitive Machines’ second CLPS craft hard-landed on the Moon’s south pole and came to rest on its side, which led to the mission being unsuccessful across all of NASA’s primary goals related to learning about local water ice.
NASA’s VIPER rover cannot catch a break. Originally meant to reveal the first set of hard facts about the Moon’s polar water ice deposits, NASA instead cancelled VIPER’s CLPS flight last year citing cost challenges. The agency then tried finding a private company that will fly and operate the rover at its own cost, an approach many argued decidedly fails at VIPER’s original goal. After evaluating the proposals submitted by private companies, NASA has come to the same conclusion. The agency will restructure the solicitation to elicit stronger proposals that hopefully stay closer to VIPER’s original science goals.
Astrobotic completed testing their lunar navigation and guidance systems to be onboard the company’s upcoming Griffin CLPS lander. The large lander’s primary payload will be Astrolab’s FLIP rover, which got manifested recently after NASA decided not to fly VIPER aboard.
Firefly and the UAE space agency MBRSC announced that the former’s second CLPS lander will carry the second UAE rover to the Moon’s farside next year.

Artemis

Preparations continue to fly the four Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and back next year. Technicians working at NASA completed integrating the SLS rocket sans the Orion spacecraft in May while Lockheed Martin delivered said capsule to NASA for further processing and assembly. And, teams and the crew are practicing sea recovery procedures for when the capsule would splash on Earth at the end of the mission.
With three back-to-back failures of SpaceX Starship, NASA’s long road to putting humans on the Moon with Artemis III has slowed down further. In the meanwhile, Blue Origin’s successful launch of its New Glenn rocket in January finally opened up a second line of pursuit for NASA to send lunar astronauts vis-à-vis Blue Moon. Blue Origin aims to launch its first two robotic Moon landers by next year as practice ahead of crewed flights—but with nearly no NASA payloads onboard.
The Trump administration’s budget request for NASA for FY 2026 proposes a historic ~25% cut but continues support for the crewed Artemis II and III missions as planned so as to try landing on the Moon before China attempts the same by 2030. Notably, the budget proposes cancelling SLS and Orion from Artemis IV onward as well as the NASA-led international Gateway orbital habitat. It proposes changes to CLPS and several lunar science programs too. The US Congress will review these proposals in the coming months for appropriation or changes.
In February, Blue Origin simulated two minutes of lunar gravity inside the New Shepard crew capsule. NASA funded this project, and tested 17 lunar-relevant payloads onboard the capsule. As such, NASA continues leveraging New Shepard flights to help verify and refine new lunar technologies at relatively low costs before they can be sent to the Moon.
Zeno Power raised $50 million, a major chunk of which will go towards developing and demonstrating the company’s nuclear electric power system on the Moon for NASA by 2027.

India

Illustration of the Chandrayaan 5 lander and rover, and a mission graphic. Images: JAXA / ISRO

Results from the thermal probe experiment on India’s Chandrayaan 3 lander have expanded the possible locations for finding water ice beyond the Moon’s poles, thereby benefiting future scouting missions.
India approved the joint ISRO-JAXA Chandrayaan 5 / LUPEX mission to drill and analyze water ice on the Moon’s south pole. The mission will be a giant leap in lunar capabilities for both ISRO and JAXA. And it can provide NASA with data critical for Artemis planning currently missing from US missions.
India’s Chandrayaan 3 rover may or may not have stumbled upon the Moon’s mantle material when studying the composition of the local lunar soil using its X-ray spectrometer.
ISRO’s Chandrayaan 2 orbiter has helped international researchers produce a galore of science results recently: from lunar geological studies to characterizing the lunar environment as well as aiding NASA in assessing landing sites for crewed Artemis missions.

More Asia-Pacific

ispace Japan’s second Moon lander, named RESILIENCE, at JAXA’s Tsukuba Space Center. Also seen integrated into the lander is ispace’s first rover TENACIOUS. Image: ispace

ispace Japan’s second Moon lander RESILIENCE successfully entered lunar orbit on May 7 and circularized it on May 29 for the June 5 landing attempt. The lander launched in January on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and then followed a multi-month low energy trajectory to the Moon.
South Korea approved plans made by the country’s newly forged space agency KASA to build a Moon lander by 2032 as part of a broader $500+ million annual investment in indigenous space technologies. South Korea is also transforming the former mining site of Taebaek into a testing ground for advanced mobile lunar exploration technologies, owing to the mine’s environmental resemblance to the darkness, coldness, and ruggedness of the Moon’s south pole.
The Australian Space Agency (ASA) continues funding local companies to build lunar technologies. In February, ASA particularly supported EntX to build a radioisotope heater unit to enable future landers and rovers to survive frigid lunar nights.

Europe

Illustration of the Lunar Pathfinder communications satellite relaying signals between Earth and robotic hardware at the Moon. Image: SSTL

ESA has started testing instruments, mission concepts, and modern astronaut tools at its new, versatile Moon-simulating LUNA facility in Germany. A simulated habitat module now adjoins LUNA to better test complex mission scenarios where humans and robots interact in varied ways for long periods.
In January, ESA announced a $882 million contract to a European consortium led by Thales Alenia Space for developing the Lunar Descent Element of the agency’s upcoming large Moon lander Argonaut. Launching no earlier than 2031, Argonaut will be capable of deploying about 2,000 kilograms of payload on the Moon. ESA hopes for Argonaut to support Artemis with navigation and communications equipment, cargo supplies for astronauts, large rover deliveries, and habitat-related infrastructure such as lunar oxygen extractors and solar arrays. It will also leverage ESA’s upcoming Moonlight navcom constellation for precision landings.

Cooperation and collaboration

The US-led Artemis Accords for cooperative lunar exploration has onboarded 55 countries with the latest addition of Norway.
China formally welcomed India to cooperate on Moon missions and ILRS.
As Moon missions converge globally, we need to preserve future exploration and science
Lunar missions can be both cheaper and safer if more countries share navigation infrastructure

Why Moon missions need their own Wikipedia and beyond—and what Open Lunar Foundation is doing about it

Achievements in Moon exploration this year: Notable developments by country or region