NASA’s micro-mission Lunar Trailblazer will make macro-measurements of the lunar surface in 2025

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

César León Jr., Washington University in St. Louis

(THE CONVERSATION) NASA’s upcoming Artemis II mission is slated to return astronauts to the Moon no sooner than April 2026. Astronauts were last on the Moon in 1972 during the Apollo 17 mission.

Artemis II will utilize NASA’s Space Launch System, which is an extremely powerful rocket that will enable human space exploration beyond Earth’s atmosphere. The crew of four will travel in an Orion spacecraft, which the agency launched around the Moon and successfully returned during the Artemis I mission.

But before Artemis II, NASA will send two missions to scout the surface of the lunar south pole for resources that could sustain human space travel and enable new scientific discoveries.

Planetary geologists like me are interested in data from Lunar Trailblazer, one of these two scouting missions. The data from this mission will help us understand how water forms and behaves on rocky planets and moons.

Starting with...