Shackleton to Malapert

157 km

Along the great circle between the endpoints.

These are the great circle's numbers; the terrain route is computing in your browser.

From the crater at the south pole to the crater Malapert, 85 degrees south, both IAU-named; NASA's Malapert Massif candidate region for Artemis III lies on Mons Malapert, the mountain to the south-west named for the crater (the USGS region polygon is centred on it). The whole route is inside the polar zone, where the terrain route is searched on the 160 m LOLA tier (400 m for the page's first paint) and is a computed estimate. IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature, Malapert; NASA, Artemis III candidate landing regions (2024-10-28); McClernan (2024), Down Selected Artemis III Candidate Landing Site Navigational Grids, USGS data release, doi:10.5066/P1MEQ6UK

Travel time, estimated

Apollo rover:: About 20 h 59 min, estimateddirect line3.73 km of this route is steeper than 25 degrees and is not timed.Source: NSSDCA, The Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle; Apollo 15 Mission Report (MSC-05161, 1971); Apollo 17 Mission Report (JSC-07904, 1973)
On foot:: About 46 h 31 min, estimateddirect line3.73 km of this route is steeper than 20 degrees and is not timed.Source: Eppler et al., Lunar highland terrain walking EVA operations (LPSC 2025, abstract 2023)
VIPER:: About 13 d 11 h, estimateddirect line7.46 km of this route is steeper than 15 degrees and is not timed.Source: NASA, VIPER rover and instruments (science.nasa.gov, 2023)

Assumptions, on foot:

Travel time only, not a mission duration: continuous travel with no stops, rest, recharging, communication passes or lighting constraints.
Level-ground speed 4.40 km/h: the level-ground walking speed Apollo 14 EVA planning used (4 ft/s, 1.2 m/s); slopes were planned at 2.2 km/h.
Tobler's hiking function shape, speed = base x exp(-3.5 tan|slope|), pinned to the Apollo planning speed on the flat and applied to the absolute slope so a descent earns no bonus (Tobler's terrestrial peak on a gentle downhill is dropped). At 8 degrees this gives 2.7 km/h against the 2.2 km/h Apollo planned for slopes and the 2.6 to 3.3 km/h measured on the Apollo 16 station 11 climb.
Segments steeper than 20 degrees are not timed: the steepest slopes Apollo crews worked on foot (about 20 degrees at Apollo 17 station 6); not a physical limit, segments beyond it are flagged as steeper than any Apollo walking traverse.
Slopes are means over 3.8 km samples of the LOLA elevation model; steeper local terrain is smoothed away, so the flags are optimistic.
The route is the great circle between the endpoints; it does not avoid craters, boulders or shadow, and no time is added for stops.

Elevation profile

Ascent: 7,156 m
Descent: 6,605 m
Max slope: 29.6°
Elevation: -2,724 to 1,186 m
Elevation data: LOLA, 3.8 km samples
In daylight: 157 of 157 km as of 00:05 UTC, computed when this page was served

Elevation sampled every 3.8 km from the NASA LRO LOLA model, so local slopes are smoothed and the steep flags are optimistic. Heights are above the 1,737.4 km sphere. Daylight is the Sun above a smooth horizon. The map and the elevation chart load with JavaScript.

Crosses 8 cells

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