GRAIL's twin spacecraft studied the internal structure and composition of the Moon in unprecedented detail for nine months and produced a detailed gravitational map of the Moon.

The main objective of NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite was to confirm the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater. The LCROSS shepherding spacecraft and the Atlas V’s Centaur upper stage rocket executed a fly-by of the moon on June 23, 2009 and entered

Chandrayaan 1 is an Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) mission designed to orbit the Moon over a two year period with the objectives of upgrading and testing India's technological capabilities in space and returning scientific information on the lunar surface.

The goal of the Chang'e 1 mission was to prove basic technologies, test out several engineering systems and "create a 3D map of the lunar surface, to analyze the distribution of certain chemicals on the lunar surface, to survey the thickness of the lunar soil, to estimate helium 3 resources,

The SELENE-Kaguya mission was designed to create a detailed topographical model of the Moon. The mission carried two small satellites: Okina and Ouna, which mean “honorable elderly man” and “honorable elderly woman,” respectively.