By Rob Coppinger at Farnborough
International lunar co-operation is advancing, but faces obstacles of its own
Farnborough air show this year witnessed more announcements from the world's major space agencies about their intentions to explore the solar system together.
There have been collaborative endeavours since the dawn of the space age, from Apollo-Soyuz to Shuttle-Mir and the 21-nation International Space Station (ISS). Foundations are now being laid for co-operation that would take joint missions to another level: human exploration beyond low Earth orbit, with astronauts from many countries working for weeks and months, first on the Moon, then Mars and beyond.
Speaking at Farnborough, NASA administrator Michael Griffin stressed the importance of continuing inter-agency co-operation. "The Station's legacy is the international partnership that created it. So I would say now is the perfect opportunity for what comes next: the exploration of the Moon and Mars and the exploitation of near-Earth asteroids."
But partnerships can be as challenging as the technology. "Co-operation is hard. ESA is all about co-operation. We have 17 states co-operating. It requires transparency and trust," says European Space Agency director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain. To build that trust, talks are underway on a global strategy to Moon and Mars missions. "[At Farnborough] Gritten met with several of his colleagues from ESA, JAXA, DLR and BNSC. All of the meetings included discussions on future exploration," says NASA. If agreed, the strategy will be unveiled in early December and will begin to determine what countries contribute in science, hardware and personnel.
The ISS is an example of how that strategy could evolve and how space agencies could contribute. "We consider the ISS a significant testbed for the future exploration of the Moon and Mars, which we wish to jointly undertake with our international partners," Griffin stressed while visiting German aerospace centre DLR's facility in Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich.
ESA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Russia's Federal Space Agency have supplied habitable modules for the NASA-led ISS, while Canada provides one of the Station's robotic arms. Russia has provided crew and cargo transportation and an emergency return capability, and the resupply capability will be complemented by ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle when it launches in May 2007, and then later by JAXA's H-II Transfer Vehicle.
Any new international agreement could set out responsibilities for a manned lunar base in the same way the existing concord has for the ISS. As well as habitat modules there will need to be nuclear power systems, robotic rovers, Moon-to-Earth communications, in-situ propellant and oxygen generation, and science experiments. And a Moon base of four or more astronauts will require regular supply deliveries.
NASA's plan is to reach the Moon by 2020, at the latest, and then start constructing an operational lunar base. To do this the agency plans to develop a family of launch vehicles: Ares I for the Crew Exploration Vehicle and Ares V for the Earth departure stage and cargo. These will be wholly US vehicles, but senior NASA officials sounded more flexible on other spacecraft. "If [the other space agencies] came up with a lander, that's good," said NASA Constellation programme manager, Jeffrey Hanley.
But Europe and Russia want to co-operate on more than just a lander. By September, ESA and the FSA should have in place an 18-month study to determine what new manned vehicle they could develop together. ESA would like to see a capsule as part of a Moonship capable of circumlunar missions. The Moonship would use mission modules based on ESA's ATV and Columbus ISS laboratory and could be ready by 2014.
But before humans make the three-day trip to the Moon, robots will take the lead. At Farnborough, JAXA vice president Kaoru Mamiya said Japan's initial contribution would be Selene, "the largest and most complex [Moon] probe since Apollo. As our first step in the new international lunar cooperation, we will provide Selene data for future manned missions". To be launched in 2007, Selene will consist of one main and two smaller satellites in formation in a 100km (60 mile) polar orbit, carrying high-definition television cameras, x-ray and gamma spectrometers, lunar magnetometers, plasma imagers and laser altimeters.
Robotic searchers
NASA also has plans for a string of robotic Moon probes that will orbit and land. Its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is due to arrive in orbit in November or December 2008 to sample the Moon's radiation environment, search for frozen water, make laser maps of the lunar terrain and photograph the entire surface. The spacecraft will identify potential landing sites and could even photograph the Apollo descent stages and rovers left behind forty years ago.
Meanwhile, ESA is still determining what it wants to do. Its SMART-1 probe is already in lunar orbit, but is to be crashed into the Moon next month. For future probes and manned exploration, ESA has started a year-long industrial study to identify lunar science objectives and Mars exploration-related technologies that could be demonstrated on a Moon mission. The study, led by Alcatel Alenia Space Italy and involving five European universities, will conclude later this year.
Come Farnborough 2008, the space agencies may still be nailing down the fine detail of their co-operation beyond the current ISS partnership, but if they succeed in the decade to come, in the words of Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan, "we shall return with peace and hope for all mankind". ■
Source: Flight International
