Statio Tianjiang
What Statio Tianjiang is
Statio Tianjiang is a statio — a landing site — the only class named after a human arrival — on The Moon, centred at 41.6° S, 154.0° W in the Apollo quadrangle.
Where the name comes from
Constellation name in the ancient Chinese star map; means âthe celestial riverâ, synonymous with tian he, the Milky Way; landing site of Changâe 6. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 2024, under the theme it applies to every statio on The Moon. Of the 4 features of this class catalogued on The Moon, the naming categories run China (3), Latin (1).
What it would take to settle Statio Tianjiang
The Moon scores 29.1 as a world. That number is the same for every square metre of it — but sunlight, water, radiation and the ground under your feet are not. This is the same question asked at 41.6° S, 154.0° W.
What this spot has going for it is ground — flat ground — the easiest thing to land on and build across. What works against it is water — outside the ice-bearing latitudes.
Computed from Statio Tianjiang's catalogued latitude, longitude and feature class — 84% of the model's weight had a basis here, and one axis was dropped as not applicable to The Moon (radiation geometry). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on The Moon and are already counted in the world's own index, not again here.
What this cannot see: elevation. Slope, local shadowing and the polar “peaks of eternal light” — ridge tops near the poles of a barely tilted world that catch sun almost continuously while a crater floor kilometres away never does — need a terrain model this does not have. Where a real mission targets a pole, that is usually why.