source: Le Figaro
author: Véronique Guillermard
translation: doxa-louise
Europe is taking up Lunar Exploration
The European Space Agency has mandated ArianeGroup foran exploration mission before 2025. Lunar settlement will follow.
Something of a symbol. It is on the day of a total Lunar eclipse, Monday January 21 at dawn, that Europe is announcing its intention to launch a proper Lunar mission. Certainly, well after the United States which will celebrate in July 2019 the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission and the first man on the Moon. But with the hope of participating in the new rush toward Earth’s satellite and to signal its desire to act in a sovereign manner in exploitation and space exploration.
First step in this grand project, starting a feasibility study, with a 1 million Euro budget.
This will be the work of ArianeGroup, the constructor of the European rocket Ariane, by the European Space Agency (ESA). This industrial concern will be working within the framework set by an ‘innovative consortium’ alongside PT Scientists, a German start-up, who will work on the future lander, and Space Application Services, a Belgian SME (Small and Medium-sized enterprises) who will look at ground, communication, and sundry services.
ArianeGroup is expected to come up with the transport solution. ‘We already have the rocket to reach the Moon, Ariane 6 and to be precise version 64, capable of moving 8.5 tons to cislunar orbit ( the space between Earth and Lunar orbit). We will need to adapt the forward part of Ariane 6 to the mission and the discharge of the little Lunar robot’, tells us André-Hubert Roussel, executive president of ArianeGroup. The decision on when to send out this first European robotic mission should be made in 2022 for a launch in 2025.
ArianeGroup and its partners should present their conclusions in one year’s time.
‘ESA is not building a space vessel but wishes to buy tickets to the Moon. It is up to industry to meet the technological challenge with solutions for logistical transport and exploitation of the Lunar surface. It is working on a commercial challenge because we wish to buy a service from them’, explains David Parker, director of Human and Robotic Exploration at ESA.
Sending European Astronauts
‘The study is expected to tell us under what conditions exploiting the resources on the Moon could serve to provision in water, oxygen, fuel, etc space exploration missions to other planets. Which would save us from transporting these resources from Earth and reduce costs’, adds David Parker. Moving one kilo between Earth and the International Space Station (ISS), on low orbit at 400 kilometers, costs between 250 and 300 Euros.
The next stage will be to send European astronauts to the Moon - on board an Ariane 6 which will be ‘adaptable’, - in order to explore and exploit the surface over long periods. To this end, a lunar village - a long-standing idea dear to Jan Woermer, director-general at ESA - will be built in order to maintain a permanent human presence.
2019 is thus a crucial year for Europe which must decide if it wants to be a credible and sovereign actor in Space for decades to come. Certainly, Europe is already part of the Lunar adventure, and tomorrow Martian one, by cooperating with others. ESA will be a partner in the construction, starting in 2019, of the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, a space station in orbit around the Moon, brain-child of NASA. Europe has already delivered, at the end of 2018, Orion, the service module for the manned NASA capsules. But Europe must be present in an autonomous fashion in Space whose exploitation, surveillance, protection and exploration are (and will continue to be) crucial for its economy and also for the security and future of its citizens.
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