WASHINGTON, USA, Oct. 21, 2026 - A National Academies committee delivered a report to NASA on 21 October recommending four non-polar landing sites for future crewed Artemis missions: Bhabha Crater, Mons Hadley, Orientale Basin and Aristarchus Plateau. The NASA-sponsored study presented 18 months of work by a 13-member committee supported by four subcommittees.

Bhabha Crater, the top-ranked site, lies on the lunar far side and is proposed for radio astronomy. Mons Hadley is near the Apollo 15 landing site, and co-chair Dan Dumbacher of Purdue University said studying Apollo 15 hardware and waste there will inform lunar base engineering. Co-chair James Day said exploring the sites will unlock previously unavailable lunar science. The report also recommends that NASA develop longer spacewalk travel range, lunar rovers, orbital mapping tools and continuous surface communications.

Impact Insight. The Moon's airless, unweathered surface keeps a record of billions of years of asteroid and comet impacts, and giant basins such as Orientale preserve that history far better than Earth's eroded surface. Studying them helps scientists work out how often large impacts happen, which underpins every estimate of the risk an asteroid poses to Earth.