Luxembourg collaborating with new lunar mission by NASA to search for resources on the Earth»s satellite
Tomorrow, August 29, Orion CM-002, the first ship of the Artemis space mission, will be launched from Cape Canaveral. 50 years after Apollo 17, the agency wants to return humans to the Moon. There are still at least three years before real new flight, but preparations have already begun. However, Luxembourg has not yet taken part in them. Despite having signed a cooperation agreement with NASA almost two years ago.
At the first stage of the program (“Artemis I”), a spacecraft with mannequin astronauts will go into lunar orbit. Scientists use the mannequins to measure the impact of cosmic radiation on future participants of the program. After passing through the orbit of the Moon, the ship will return to Earth.
In 2024, this maneuver will be repeated by a capsule with live astronauts (Artemis II). And in 2025, astronauts from different countries will land on the Moon in the Artemis III mission spaceship. After spending 6.5 days on the surface of the satellite, the team will return to Earth.
NASA in search of investors
The first lunar landing in more than 50 years needs decent funding. The previous stage of the moon conquest cost NASA 25.5 billion dollars. Therefore, in 2020, the agency began to sign agreements on financial cooperation with countries around the world.
Luxembourg was among the first seven to sign such an agreement. But since the signing at the 71st International Astronautical Congress, the country has not taken any real part in the mission.
The Ministry of Economy and the Luxembourg Space Agency confirm that negotiations on possible cooperation are underway. According to them, such decisions are simply not made quickly.
But also back in 2020, representatives of the ministry said that Luxembourg was going to cooperate «in the search for resources, operations on the surface and energy».
If we are to believe this statement, then Luxembourg will actively join the Artemis program only at the third stage. That is, by 2025.
You can watch the launch of Artemis I live online on August 29 from 12:00 to 14:00 UTC.
