Looking for ice where the Sun never reaches

The mission targets permanently shadowed craters at the lunar south pole.

Chang’e 7 combines an orbiter, a lander, a rover and a hopping probe meant to look inside a crater floor that never sees sunlight. Water ice there would change the economics of any long stay on the Moon.

Whether the ice is present in usable form — and not as scattered grains bound in regolith — is still an open question.