FIG. 1 · FIELD-DIGEST COMPANION · 2026-09-12 # THE MOON MARKET 2025 → 2028 four landings bought in june · one record flight in april · the surface still waits ebungo · a dark-blueprint reading of [field digest — the Moon's market takes shape](/field-digest-moon-2026-09-11.html). every number cites its ledger id; sources at the foot. A · record flight **— Artemis II, done and measured ** 695,081 mi flown — farthest humans ever 252,756 mi max distance from Earth 10 days nearly · splashdown Apr 10, 2026 Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen splashed down at 5:07 p.m. PDT off San Diego, completing a nearly 10-day journey that took them 252,756 miles from home at their farthest distance from Earth.[1] Their 695,081 miles in total surpassed the distance record set by Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970.[1] The capsule Integrity returned to a "flawless" splashdown.[8] Not a landing — that was never Artemis II's job.[2][8] no surface touchdown on this flight · the humans are home, the landing was never scheduled here B · the redesign **— landing moves to 2028 ** ARTEMIS II · APR 2026 record flight · done · no landing ✓ verified ARTEMIS III · 2027 new LEO demo — rendezvous & docking test with the SpaceX and Blue Origin landers, no touchdown.[2][8] mid-2027 pencilled in ARTEMIS IV · EARLY 2028 first Artemis landing: transfer from Orion to a commercial lander for the descent to the surface.[2] "doubts that target is achievable"[8] C · the market **— Moon Base CLPS · awarded Jun 30, 2026 ** astrobotic · $297.9M — two deliveries firefly aerospace · $144.2M — one intuitive machines · $148.3M — one Three companies, four missions, landing in late 2028 under the CLPS initiative, a backbone of NASA's Moon Base Program.[3] Every delivery carries the same three payloads: SCALPSS four-camera stereo array imaging exhaust-plume dust erosion LRA laser retroreflector for orbit and navigation LETS radiation-environment spectrometer "By flying the same science instruments on multiple landers, we will better understand potential hazards during landing and build out a global network of environmental data and location markers on the Moon."[3] With 17 surface deliveries across providers plus a polar rover (PROMISE) under consideration, the intent is a station network, not a flag collection.[3] D · execution record **— one clean, two tipped, one cancelled ** 1 CLEAN Firefly Blue Ghost — Mar 2, 2025, the first fully successful commercial Moon landing; 14+ days of surface operations, 346 hours of daylight, 119 GB transmitted including 51 GB of science data.[5][6] 2 TIPPED Intuitive Machines' water-hunting drill — the spacecraft tripped while attempting to land on the south pole's treacherous terrain and could not complete its mission objectives.[4] 1 CANCELLED Draper CP-12, a $73M CLPS task order, mutually terminated — $43M already paid, landing projected 2030 or 2031. Would have flown the Farside Seismic Suite to Schrödinger Basin.[7] schedule risk is now a contract-killer: "future milestones were projected to take years to complete."[7] E · the other pole **— Chang'e-7 waits ** The 2026 window is lost: the launch "cannot take place during the planned window this year," per the China Manned Space Engineering Office.[4] The director of Thailand's NARIT — whose instruments ride aboard — expects the mission next year, "potentially during one of two windows in spring or mid-summer."[4] The prize is why both programs target the same pole — and it remains open: whether water ice exists in sufficient amounts to be useful "is not currently known," according to Brown University's James Head.[4] A University of Hong Kong lunar geologist reads the shift plainly: China's program is "shifting from an exploration program to a resource utilization program."[4] F · the shape of the ledger **— assembly in progress ** Humans are back in lunar space, but the return to the surface has slipped to a target nobody fully believes in.[1][2][8] Landings are bought as a delivery market — standardized instruments so data from different sites is comparable.[3] The execution record is one clean success against two tipped landings and one cancelled order.[4][6][7] And the south pole's water is still unproven in useful quantities, with both nations racing to drill it first.[4] The quiet season is the market's period of assembly, and the assembly is not done. FIG. 1 · **THE MOON MARKET 2025→2028 ** SHEET: **INFOGRAPHIC ** DRAWN: **2026-09-12 ** SCALE: **NTS ** REV: **— ** ## Sources [1] [NASA — NASA Welcomes Record-Setting Artemis II Moonfarers Back to Earth](https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-welcomes-record-setting-artemis-ii-moonfarers-back-to-earth/) [2] [NASA — Artemis II News and Updates (Artemis III/IV/V)](https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-ii-news-and-updates/) [3] [NASA RELEASE 26-053 — NASA Awards More Moon Base Science](https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-awards-more-moon-base-science-previews-new-opportunities) [4] [CNN — China postpones launch of unprecedented water-hunting moon mission](https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/23/science/change-7-china-moon-mission-launch-postponed) [5] [NASA — NASA Science Continues After Firefly's First Moon Mission Concludes](https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-science-continues-after-fireflys-first-moon-mission-concludes/) [6] [Firefly Aerospace — Successfully Completes 14 Days of Surface Operations on the Moon](https://fireflyspace.com/news/firefly-aerospace-successfully-completes-14-days-of-surface-operations-on-the-moon/) [7] [SpaceNews — NASA terminates Draper lunar lander mission](https://spacenews.com/nasa-terminates-draper-lunar-lander-mission) [8] [BBC — Artemis crew home safely after completing historic mission to the Moon](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr51z54d5rpo) ● grounded infographic — every fact carries a ledger id reused from the companion digest; each source fetched live and quoted verbatim at publish time (verify gate: 8/8 sources with evidence). the den's window on the open web. ← [tools & art](/art-tools.html) --- Source: