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Russia’s decision to partner with China on a planned lunar research station, and not to join the US-led Artemis lunar program, has been disappointing after more than two decades of cooperation on the Space Station international, said NASA’s chief human spaceflight.
Russian and Chinese space officials signed a memorandum of understanding on March 9 to partner with an international lunar research station. The joint lunar program is “open to all interested countries and international partners,” the Chinese national administration said in a statement.
The concept pursued by China and Russia could include robotic and crewed elements on the surface of the moon, possibly at the lunar south pole. The countries said the exploration program could also provide a long-term science platform orbiting the moon.
The International Lunar Research Station “will carry out multidisciplinary and multi-objective scientific research activities such as lunar exploration and use, lunar observation, basic science experiment and technical verification,” said the Chinese space agency.
Chinese and Russian officials said the countries will “jointly formulate a road map” for the construction of the lunar research station and closely collaborate in planning, demonstration, design, development, implementation. and the operation of the outpost. They will also promote the project to “international space communities,” the space agencies said in a statement.
China has an advanced lunar robotic exploration program. In 2019, China landed the first spacecraft on the other side of the moon, and China’s Chang’e 5 mission returned the first samples from the lunar surface last year since 1976, when the Russian sent its last robotic mission to the moon.
Russia is developing a lander named Luna 25 that could launch to the moon before the end of this year, the first mission in a Soviet-era Luna program revival. Two tracking missions, Luna 26 and Luna 27, will orbit the Moon and attempt a landing near the South Pole. The Luna 27 lander, slated for launch in 2025, will carry instruments from the European Space Agency, including a drill and a sophisticated mini-lab to analyze lunar soil for water ice.
European nations have also agreed to conduct experiments on Chinese lunar missions.
China’s next robotic lunar mission, Chang’e 6, is expected to launch in 2023 or 2024. Building on last year’s Chang’e 5 mission, Chang’e 6’s goal will be to collect and return samples to Earth from a location near the moon’s south pole.
Around the same time, China plans to launch the Chang’e 7 mission, an ambitious multi-satellite expedition comprising a lunar orbiter, a lander, a rover, a “hopper” to fly over the lunar surface and a satellite of communication relay.
Before the end of the 2020s, China plans to launch another robotic mission named Chang’e 8 at a site near the lunar south pole. Chang’e 8 will test technologies for manufacturing in space and harvesting lunar resources that could be used by a crewed landing mission.
Chinese and Russian officials did not say last week when the International Lunar Research Station might be operational, but China has previously said it might be ready for manned lunar landings in the 2030s.
The International Lunar Research Station is similar to NASA’s Artemis program, which will include a near-moon-orbiting mini-space station called the Gateway, as well as sustained crewed missions to the moon’s south pole. The objective of the Artemis program is to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon and to refine the technologies necessary for future journeys to Mars.
NASA has signed memoranda of understanding with ESA and the governments of Japan and Canada to work together on Artemis missions. All are partners of the International Space Station in low Earth orbit and will provide the main components of the Gateway space station.
“I think we were disappointed,” said Kathy Lueders, associate administrator of the NASA Exploration and Human Exploitation Mission Directorate. “I think the International Space Station has been a really great international collaboration, but one of our great partnerships has been with our Russian counterparts.”
The International Space Station is expected to remain operational until the late 2020s, when NASA hopes a commercial company will be ready with a private low-earth orbit research outpost. If that happens, NASA and other government space agencies could buy access to the commercial space station for astronauts and science experiments, rather than operating the entire research complex.
Russia has “been a partner who has done things very, very differently, and we have learned a lot from them,” Lueders said last month, when Russia announced its intention to partner with China. “We honestly learned a ton. We tend to be kind of engineers of finesse, and they’re just tough… So we learned from the partnership with them, and we hoped to continue that partnership around the lunar surface.
“We now understand that they have different priorities, and currently they have said that this is not a partnership that is what they think. But I hope that over time we will forge future partnerships.
“I’m convinced that NASA is a way for us… to be able to create bonds that bind us through the good times and the bad. So I hope to find other ways to be able to help us cross nations and be able to work together peacefully in the future, ”said Lueders.
“Cooperation between NASA, Roscosmos and other space agencies has been instrumental in the long-term success of the International Space Station,” said Monica Witt, spokesperson for NASA. “We look forward to expanding the relationships and lessons learned from the ISS as the bridge is built, which will be the cornerstone of sustainable lunar operations while demonstrating key technologies and processes for a historic human mission to Mars. .
“While Roscosmos has informed NASA that they do not wish to be part of the Gateway partnership at this time, they have offered to continue exploring interoperability and we welcome such a discussion,” Witt said in a statement. written.
NASA wanted Russia to build an airlock to support spacewalks for astronauts outside the bridge. Witt said NASA still plans to add an airlock to the gateway in 2028, and said the agency “will consider other options for the airlock supplier.”
The US space agency has also entered into agreements known as the Artemis Agreements, which set out principles for exploration and expectations for standards of behavior in space. The principles include peaceful exploration, transparency, interoperability, emergency assistance, registration of artificial space objects and public dissemination of scientific data.
The first signatories of the Artemis agreements are the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, Italy, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates.
Russia has not indicated any intention to sign the agreements. NASA is legally prohibited from bilateral partnerships with China in the field of space exploration.
NASA plans to use a mix of launches using the agency’s new heavy-lift rocket from the agency’s space launch system, commercial rockets, the Orion crew capsule, and private and government-funded lunar landers for them. Artemis missions.
Russia is NASA’s largest partner on the International Space Station, a partnership cemented in 1993 after the end of the Cold War. But rifts between partners are growing as diplomatic relations have deteriorated in recent years.
Last October, the head of Roscosmos – the Russian space agency – said the Artemis program was “too focused on the United States”.
“Our American partners are actively promoting it,” said Dmitry Rogozin, Managing Director of Roscosmos, during a virtual panel at the International Astronautical Congress in October. “In our opinion, Lunar Gateway, in its current form, is too US-centric.”
“Russia is likely to refrain from participating on a large scale,” Rogozin said of the gateway.
Rogozin said last year that Roscosmos wanted to make sure their next-generation Orel crew spacecraft could dock at the catwalk. The Orel spacecraft is under development to replace the Russian Soyuz crew capsule, and will be designed to transport astronauts into low earth orbit and to destinations beyond.
The Orel spacecraft “is designed for future national manned missions, and when needed, it can also be used for the benefit of our partners as a back-up option to launch astronauts into space or bring them back from orbit”, Rogozin said.
China is also developing a next-generation crew capsule capable of bringing astronauts home from the moon.
“Speaking of our program, it is first and foremost a national program. The United States, along with its partners, are continuing their Artemis program, ”Rogozin said. “Even if Russia does not seize the opportunity to participate in the Artemis program, that does not necessarily mean that our boats do not have to be adapted to cling to each other.”
In a tweet on Monday, Rogozin wrote: “Russia’s and China’s plans on the moon are open to wide international participation. This is not about confrontation, but about cooperation in exploring the moon. “
Mark Kirasich, NASA deputy assistant administrator for advanced exploration systems, said last month that the US space agency will continue to work with Russia on technical standards to ensure that US and Russian spacecraft will be able to dock in space.
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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