NASA’s Moon Base plan identifies the Shackleton Connecting Ridge at the lunar south pole as the primary site for the future base, because sunlit ridgelines there can generate power almost continuously while the adjacent crater floor provides access to permanently shadowed regions that may contain water ice.[1] The program’s first mission, Moon Base I, is set to deliver payloads to the ridge no earlier than fall 2026, using a Blue Origin Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander, with the site choice explicitly tied to reducing risk for later crewed Artemis missions targeted for 2028.[1]
For lunar habitation, this is the critical combination: stable energy, local volatile access, and terrain useful for staged construction. A polar ridge with near-continuous illumination lowers dependence on long-duration battery storage, while water ice can support life support, propellant production, and radiation-shielded industrial processes; together, those factors move the Moon from a short-stay outpost toward an energy- and resource-backed settlement architecture.[1]
The Ark team should treat Shackleton ridge as the leading candidate reference model for any permanent lunar node and track three items: the performance of the first robotic delivery at Moon Base I, the engineering results from autonomous landing and cryogenic propulsion demonstrations, and the pace at which NASA converts ridge-adjacent water-ice access into operational logistics for power, life support, and surface mobility.[1]