This December NASA and the European Space Agency should announce a global exploration strategy following ongoing discussions. The strategy’s aim is to enable the world’s space agencies to integrate their plans for Moon and Mars exploration.
The global exploration plan would be unveiled at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 2nd Space Exploration Conference to be held in Houston, Texas from 4-6 December. “Over the next several months, the international space agencies plan to draft this global exploration strategy with an initial focus on the Moon. It is anticipated that the strategy will be presented at December’s exploration conference,” says NASA.
Last month NASA announced its plans to divide exploration systems work between its own centres (Flight International, 13-19 June) and ESA had an industry day earlier this month to detail work for the year and outline future plans for its long-term Aurora programme. “The overall financial volume of [the invitation to tender] is €7 million [$8.8 million] in quarter three this year for Aurora,” ESA announced at its industry day.
One impact of the US agency’s changing plans has been to move potential launch dates for the $3 billion joint Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission with ESA. MSR is the second of two Aurora robotic missions. Unofficially scheduled for 2018, the shift of focus in NASA towards lunar missions has moved MSR to 2020 or later. However, ESA is already involved in negotiations for MSR’s Phase A2 study with an Alcatel Alenia Space-led European-Canadian consortium.
Source: Flight International
