A comprehensive review of emerging trends in lunar science exploration research pertaining to cislunar missions safety

In recent years, as humanity stands at the threshold of a new era in space exploration, lunar missions have experienced a renewed global interest driven by the Moon’s unique and strategically vital position in space, coupled with its vast reserves of unexplored natural resources. As a critical gateway to deep space exploration, the Moon offers an unparalleled proving ground for advanced technological and scientific research associated with sustained human habitation on Moon and future interplanetary missions. In this study, a comprehensive review has been conducted to fill the gaps in the overall insights of lunar science exploration field resulting in identification of five pivotal research domains each holding transformative potential for advancing humanity’s interplanetary ambitions such as autonomous robotic explorers capable of in-situ resource utilization to AI-driven decision-making systems enhancing mission resilience. In this review, 149 articles were meticulously selected for in-depth analysis from renewed databases among which Science Direct was a significant source having the highest number of publications, followed by Springer. This review not only focusses on the objectives of highlighting the most promising frontiers in lunar science and technology, but also critically investigates the major topic questions identified and explained meticulously followed by the way forward interdisciplinary opportunities poised to accelerate humanity’s sustained presence on the Moon, setting the stage for deeper exploration of the solar system. At the same time, the escalating importance of safety in cislunar missions stems from the unique challenges of this expanding orbital regime, where non-Keplerian dynamics amplify risks from spacecraft failures, debris propagation and operational hazards, as evidenced by historical analyses and simulations. Therefore, this review also prioritizes safety ensuring sustainable exploration, minimizes mission losses and supports international collaboration in building resilient cislunar infrastructure.