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European space officials will reveal this week detailed plans for a series of ambitious missions aimed at returning humans to the moon in the coming years.
Projects will include the construction of the crew quarters for an orbiting lunar space station, the fabrication of the power and propulsion units for the United States’ Orion spacecraft, and the design and construction of a sophisticated communication and refueling, known as Esprit, to serve astronauts on the lunar surface. These missions will be carried out in conjunction with NASA and the Japanese and Canadian space agencies.
Planning for the program, known as Gateway, has been going on for years, but now final contracts with European aerospace companies are about to be signed and will be announced at this week’s International Astronautical Congress. “The decisions have been made and now the lunar spaceport is ready,” said David Parker, chief of robotics at the European Space Agency (Esa) and a key figure in the Gateway program.
The goal of the program was to get the first astronauts to the moon by 2024, he added. “That is a challenging deadline, but we are prepared.”
Parker said that the first groups of astronauts to fly to the moon are likely to include a European. Briton Tim Peake, an Esa astronaut who spent six months on the International Space Station orbiting the Earth, has already indicated that he would like to participate.
The goal of the Gateway program is to open the moon to scientific scrutiny in the same way that Antarctica was opened in the second half of the last century. “The moon is like an eighth continent,” Parker said. “It is an astronomical museum that has been absorbing the history of our solar system for more than 4 billion years. When we went there with Apollo, we basically went to the museum’s gift shop, bought some souvenirs, and went home. Now let’s explore it properly. “
A key goal of Gateway will be to explore the moon’s south pole for ice water. Evidence from robot probes suggests that ice exists there, and finding it would have a crucial influence on the construction of future lunar colonies. The separation of water into its constituent elements of oxygen and hydrogen by electrolysis could provide fuel and air for astronauts.
The primary vehicle used to transport astronauts to the moon will be the Orion spacecraft, which is scheduled to make its maiden unmanned flight on NASA’s giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket next year. Esa has already provided the power and propulsion units for Orion’s first flight and is ready to build another five units.
Esa officials have also agreed to contracts to build the Gateway’s main crew module, which will operate like a smaller version of the International Space Station but will span the Moon, not Earth. For the next decade it will be used as a research center and support post for missions to the lunar surface.
The hope is that exploration is fully underway by the end of the decade, Parker said. “By then, we will have had 30 years working on the International Space Station. We will return to the moon during this decade and spend 15 to 20 years doing whatever it takes to explore the moon. Then we can think about the next step: go to Mars. “
