European Space Agency Lays Out Plans for a Lunar Satellite Network

The European Space Agency has detail its program for a mesh of lunar orbiter that will bear out a human presence on the Moon . The project , dubbed Moonlight , would fashion the Moon as a launchpad for deeper blank geographic expedition .

TheMoonlight initiativewould also serve navigational purpose , helping craft body politic on the Moon with new — and routine — precision . Once upon a time , the Moon was merely associate with Earth by virtue of our planet ’s gravitative twist . With a full-bodied planet meshing , messages could flutter outright between our pale blasphemous dot and the pocket-size white-haired dot next room access .

“ This project will turn on the effective exploration of the Moon by creating a reliable and effective telecommunication and navigation web through a constellation of lunar satellites , ” Elodie Viau , the theater director of the Telecommunications and Integrated Applications extension of ESA , in a pressure conference today . “ But that will be just the showtime … it will help us pave the way to military mission to Mars and beyond . ”

A mock-up of the Heracles lunar lander, slated to head to the moon in the late 2020s.

A mock-up of the Heracles lunar lander, slated to head to the moon in the late 2020s.Illustration: ESA/ATG Medialab

Today ’s jam group discussion marked the showtime of a 12- to 18 - month study period for the project , during which ESA will talk with private - sector players to well understand exactly what such a communicating internet on the Moon could search like . The marriage proposal comes along during the nascent stagecoach of a bunce in space geographic expedition . NASA ’s Artemis commission is slated to see homo back on the Moon by 2024 , with SpaceX winning thecontract to work up the lunar lander over Jeff Bezos ’s Blue Origin . China recentlylaunched the first moduleof its space place , a effort that was only slightly overshadowed by the subsequent fears about its rocket ’s uncontrolledplummet back to Earth .

Though perhaps a little less newspaper headline - catching than those move , ESA ’s design is an exciting effort towards sustained human transit and habitation beyond Earth . It is a serious proposition about an interplanetary hitching mail ; “ the taxonomic geographic expedition of our eighth continent : the Moon , ” in the word of David Parker , ESA ’s manager for human and robotic exploration . “ The Moon is a repository of four and a half billion class of solar arrangement history , but we ’ve just begun to unlock its secrets . ”

In apress releasepublished alongside today ’s news conference , ESA enumerated a few of the benefits such a program would furnish , including missions being able-bodied to land anywhere on the Moon , receiving set astronomers being able-bodied to place up observatories on the Moon ’s dark side , bird of passage move quicker on the lunar surface , remote operation of lunar vehicles , and , perhaps most significantly , the opportunity to put scientific instruments for good on the Moon and in lunar electron orbit , saving freight space and costs on future extraterrestrial missionary work .

Yeah, that’s the Moon alright.