Space Habitats & Life Support · Recorded milestone
Water ice found at lunar poles
Recorded year2009
Chandrayaan-1 and NASA's LCROSS impactor confirm water ice in the Moon's polar craters, a resource for air, water and fuel.
Explore this milestone on the interactive mapBuilt on
- RadarRecorded · 1935enables
- Silicon solar cellRecorded · 1954requires
- Moon landingRecorded · 1969enables
- MicroprocessorRecorded · 1971requires
Led to
- Lunar ice sampled in shadowed cratersForecast · ~2027enables
- Crewed lunar returnForecast · ~2029influences
- Oxygen and water from lunar soilForecast · ~2034enables
- Multi-mission lunar baseForecast · ~2035enables
- Lunar propellant depotsForecast · ~2046enables
- Lunar resource processingForecast · ~2060enables
- Off-world water miningForecast · ~2080enables
Sources & evidence
Dataset updated 2026-10-18. This individual record has not been separately re-reviewed.