Lunar Orbital and Surface Missions Ongoing and Soon to Commence in Q2, Q3 2023
While CNSA Chang’E-3 and 4 continue surface operations and NASA / Advanced Space Capstone 145 days into 6-month primary mission; ispace HAKUTO-R operates from lunar orbit as ground controllers maintain comms during Moon occultations while preparing for landing this month; Astrobotic launching NET 4 May on ULA Vulcan Centaur; Intuitive Machines Nova-C launching on SpaceX F9 NET June; Luna-25 to launch NET 13 July via Soyuz-2.1b; JAXA SLIM postponed NET Aug pending H3 failure review due to H2A upper stage shared components