Autonomous European lunar exploration—Entry point for a global cooperation

Abstract

Since several years the institutions of the authors have conducted many strategic studies, which are aiming at lunar ventures serving both scientific and commercial applications. The latest mission concept, which has been created in this partnership together with scientific user groups from nine countries is targeting towards the establishment of lunar infrastructures serving multiple sciences. The selected strategy for the implementation of this scenario leads to the definition of the erection of a low frequency radio telescope on the far side of the Moon as initial venture. As starting point the erection of a first hub at a lunar pole was discussed. The further analyses show that the completion of the scenario will demand a global co-operation also in the sense of man tended missions or even permanent human bases. For this reason a global roadmap has to be considered for the generation of a credible programmatic. On the other hand to achieve a sustainable political and public support for this kind of venture it seems mandatory for Europe to achieve a visible contribution in such kind of venture. Therefore the identification of an autonomous European mission element, which allows self-standing execution of missions on one hand, but also provides key contributions to an international road map are major elements of the study. An overview on the current status of the proposed scenario will be given in terms of technical solution but with a strong focus on the programmatic, leading from an autonomous European initial mission to an international lunar venture.