ESA and NASA strengthen cooperation on lunar exploration and climate change

lunar coordinations

Both agencies signed a protocol of agreement on the Lunar Pathfinder mission , the future first telecommunications satellite in lunar orbit built by the British SSTL commissioned by ESA.

In exchange for access to that satellite, NASA is willing to put it into lunar orbit, ESA explained at a press conference.

Both agencies will also carry out joint tests on the possibility of using specific navigation satellites for the Moon , such as the European Galileo or the American GPS on Earth.

ESA (22 Member States) is involved in the US Artemis program to send astronauts to the Moon by 2025, and to build a lunar orbiting ministation, the Lunar Gateway . The European aerospace sector participates in the construction of the housing and communications modules.

About Russia 

Both agencies also discussed the future of the Russo-European mission ExoMars, suspended by ESA after the invasion of Ukraine. Within the framework of that mission, the agency planned to send a robot to the red planet at the end of 2022 to drill the subsoil, in search of extraterrestrial life.

” NASA is examining the most appropriate ways to help our European friends on the ExoMars mission ,” said Bill Nelson.

“The discussions are intense, but they are going in the right direction and I am confident that we will find a good partnership with NASA on Mars,” said Josef Aschbacher, director general of ESA, who specified that decisions will be made at the organization’s next ministerial meeting. , in spring.