Lunar South Pole Region

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The terrain poleward of roughly 84°S, and the target region for Artemis surface missions. Because the Moon's spin axis is tilted only about 1.5° to the ecliptic, the Sun never rises far above the horizon here: some crater floors have been in permanent shadow for billions of years and act as cold traps for water and other volatiles, while a few rim high points receive sunlight for most of the lunar year, offering near-continuous solar power and mild thermal swings that no equatorial site can match. Apollo could not go there. With a free-return trajectory, an equatorial Earth parking orbit and a lunar-orbit rendezvous plane that had to match the orbiting command module, high-latitude sites cost extra propellant and closed off abort options, so Apollo landings stayed within about 26° of the equator. Artemis stages through a lander launched separately from the crew vehicle and is not bound by Apollo's free-return and rendezvous-plane constraints, making the poles reachable.