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From time immemorial, people have gazed at the Moon in awe. Her soft light suggests romance, her tight embrace drives the tides, and she is even blamed for insanity at times.
The Moon was once the domain of the gods; many mythologies feature lunar deities. But humans are explorers, they set sail to discover new worlds and, five decades ago, the Earth’s natural satellite received its first visitors.
Now that international teams from around the world are making plans to revisit the Moon, ESA is working out the best way to facilitate this exploration.
The lunar exploration is based on the extensive experience available throughout ESA. As a new lunar economy emerges, it will create new opportunities involving robots, habitats, and transportation. Missions to the Moon share similar communication and navigation needs that could be met using a constellation of lunar satellites. As part of the agency’s “Moonlight” initiative, ESA is exploring with industry the technical solutions needed along with delivery models for the provision of lunar navigation and telecommunications services. Credit: ESA
Daring ambitions
The Moon is our closest neighbor in space. Its attractive proximity makes it the natural place to test how people can take the next steps to Mars and beyond.
The bold ambitions envision exploring the lunar polar regions through international cooperation, with dozens of very different commercial and institutional missions to the Moon already planned for this decade.
POTThe Artemis program plans to return humans to the Moon by 2024 and, in cooperation with ESA and other partners, intends to install a Gateway with accommodation for astronauts in lunar orbit. The Gateway will be home to astronauts from around the world and Europe, and will have a communications module developed by ESA.
An overview of missions to the Moon. This infographic shows the interest of commercial and institutional organizations in launching spacecraft to the Moon. Credit: ESA
ESA is working on plans for a large European logistics lander to provide different types of unmanned missions, from supply tours for Artemis astronauts, to independent robotic science and technology demonstration missions and even a lunar return mission. to bring samples to laboratories on Earth. It envisions regular releases starting in the latter part of this decade and continuing through the 2030s.
Before that, a Lunar Pathfinder spacecraft designed to provide affordable communications services to lunar missions will be launched, perhaps by the end of 2022. Developed in collaboration with ESA, the spacecraft will be a mission enabler for polar and side missions. far away that, without a direct line of sight to Earth, they would otherwise have to acquire their own communications relay spacecraft.
Many other initiatives come from major space institutions in China, India, Japan, and Russia, as well as private entities around the world.
Artist’s impression of Heracles approaching his landing site on the Moon. A European lander is planned in the next 10 years. Credit: ESA / ATG Medialab
Moonlight Project
To be successful, each of these ambitious plans requires reliable telecommunications and navigation capabilities. Building them independently would be expensive, complex, and inefficient.
If this work were outsourced to a consortium of space companies that could place a constellation of satellites around the Moon, each individual mission would be more profitable.
Having a system dedicated to lunar telecommunications and navigation could reduce design complexity, freeing up missions to focus on their core activities.
Since missions could rely on these dedicated telecommunications and navigation services, they would be lighter. This would make room for more scientific instruments or other cargo.
An accurate and reliable telecommunications and navigation service would allow missions to land wherever they wanted. Radio astronomers could set up observatories on the opposite side of the Moon. The rovers could glide across the lunar surface more quickly. It could even allow teleoperation of rovers and other equipment from Earth.
For the past three years, ESA has been working together with industrial partners to explore the lunar market. As part of an initiative called Moonlight, ESA is conducting in-depth analysis of planned lunar missions and developing potential solutions, both technical and commercial, to provide telecommunications and navigation services for the Moon.
Illuminating the possibilities
The Moon’s orbit is tidally locked to Earth, meaning it rotates once as it revolves around the planet. As a result, it always shows the same face to the Earth.
A constellation of lunar satellites would allow missions to stay in constant contact with Earth, even when they are on the opposite side of the Moon. This constellation could also enable lunar navigation in areas with no direct visibility to Earth, supporting, for example, the landing of scientific teams exactly where they intended, no matter how remote the location.
An artist’s impression of what a moon base might look like. Credit: ESA – P. Carril
It would allow missions to the polar regions of the Moon to stay in contact with Earth and with any lunar base.
Finally, reducing the price of the ticket to lunar exploration could allow a broader group of ESA member states to launch their own national lunar missions. Even with a relatively low budget, an emerging space nation could send a cubesat science mission to the Moon, inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers.
The lunar satellites would provide communication and navigation signals for all of these missions, ensuring adequate positioning services and constant connectivity for ground control and for scientists on Earth.
Exploring solutions
In recent years, ESA has conducted several feasibility studies, internally and in collaboration with industry, to understand the lunar market, its user and business parameters, and explore possible technical implementations of such infrastructure.
Preliminary concepts include several satellites in different orbits around the Moon that provide lunar missions with reliable real-time navigation and communication services.
Navigation services could support mission-critical operations such as lunar orbit, lunar landing, real-time rover driving, and lunar ascent.
The data capacity between the Earth and the Moon would gradually exceed several hundred megabits per second for the aggregated relay services, allowing for lunar mission data capabilities that compare well to streaming movies and television at home.
The demand for data is projected to increase significantly after 2028.
Next steps
ESA invited companies that are willing to study and design a lunar constellation to express their interest in the Moonlight initiative. The agency has engaged in discussions with stakeholders, who have now developed general proposals highlighting their background and experience, and explaining their proposed business and service model, partnership proposal, and draft system concept. This is the first part of a two-stage tender process. In the second stage, the agency will invite the selected companies to submit a final tender for a detailed definition of the end-to-end service.
Up to two parallel contracts fully funded with ESA are envisaged. These contracts are expected to be awarded in early 2021.
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