Resource Prospector-NASA/Taiwan lunar lander, c. 2020

[Kryten]

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/07/19/2003651332

Quote

Taiwan is to play a critical role in NASA’s Resource Prospector mission, which aims to be the first mining expedition on the moon in the early 2020s, and is expected to use a Taiwanese-made lunar lander to excavate water, oxygen and hydrogen.

The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology is to build an uncrewed lunar lander to carry a rover to polar regions of the moon to mine resources, particularly subsurface water, international program director Han Kuo-chang (韓國璋) said.

 

A little background for this; Resource Prospector is a mission concept that's been knocking around inside NASA for about a decade now. It's intended to land a rover near the lunar south pole, then test various technologies for extracting useful materials like oxygen and water from the environment. It's been in limbo because the NASA planetary science isn't interested in a non science-focused mission, and the human missions directorate which would have an interest in Lunar Resources has limited money outside the Orion, SLS, and ISS support programmes. HEOMD has enough to cover an LV and the rover, but they'd been scrabbling around trying to get somebody to build a lander for them. Now they've secured a partnership, and the mission has a good chance of actually happening.

Edited July 20, 2016 by Kryten

[Scotius]

Why Planetary Science division is not interested in such mission? I'd expect them to be over the moon, given a chance to drill in extraterrestial ice

[Kryten]

3 hours ago, Scotius said:

Why Planetary Science division is not interested in such mission? I'd expect them to be over the moon, given a chance to drill in extraterrestial ice

They could do a more science-focused mission for the same amount of money, and they generally don't like missions which bypass the standard selection system (decadal survey et.c.).