Blue Origin Plans A Pair Of Low-Flying Prospectors Around The Lunar South Pole
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The water locked up in the Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) of the Moon’s south pole is a critical resource if we are ever going to get a permanent lunar presence off the ground. But while we know the water ice there exists, we don’t really know how much. We have to move from general estimates to mineable-scale prospecting data. That is what Oasis-1, the newly proposed lunar prospecting mission from Blue Origin that was recently introduced at the 2026 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (L
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Blue Origin Plans A Pair Of Low-Flying Prospectors Around The Lunar South Pole By Andy Tomaswick - April 06, 2026 05:51 PM UTC | Planetary Science The water locked up in the Permanently Shadowed Regions of the Moon’s south pole is a critical resource if we are ever going to get a permanent lunar presence off the ground. But while we know the water ice there exists, we don’t really know how much. We have to move from general estimates to mineable-scale prospecting data. That is what Oasis-1, the newly proposed lunar prospecting mission from Blue Origin that was recently introduced at the 2026 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference is meant to do. It’s designed as a two-SmallSat mission to be deployed from Blue Origin’s uncrewed MK1 lander. The twin spacecraft will enter a highly elliptical 10 x 50 km polar orbit, with its lowest point, known as the periapsis, skimming right over the lunar South Pole. That proximity is necessary to collect as much detailed data as possible. Each satellite will use a suite of three instruments that are tailored for deep prospecting. First is a Hybrid Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer . Its main purpose is to find water - neutron spectroscopy is currently the only remote sensing technique that can quantify water down to a depth of about one meter. This still isn’t much, but better than no quantifiable estimates at all. However, because neutron spectrometers aren’t optical instruments, they don’t have great resolution at high altitudes. Oasis-1’s low altitude flybys are an attempt to remove that constraint, achieving a resolution of around 15 km per pixel at the South Pole. Though that might sound great, it’s still nine times better than current global datasets. Fraser shares his thoughts on Blue Origin from six years ago. The second instrument, a magnetometer, will map crustal magnetic anomalies at 15-30 km / pixel resolution. This instrument, which will be deployed at the end of a boom, aims to provide data that’s both of scientific v...
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