Russia’s decision to work with China on a planned lunar research station and not to join the US-led Artemis lunar program was disappointing after more than two decades of cooperation with the International Space Station, says NASA’s leading human space officer .
Russian and Chinese space officials have signed a memorandum of understanding to conclude a partnership with an International Lunar Research Station on March 9. 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 elements and crew on the lunar surface, most likely at the lunar south pole. The countries said the reconnaissance program could also be a long-term scientific platform in orbit around the moon.
The International Lunar Research Station “will conduct multidisciplinary and multi-objective scientific research activities, such as exploration and exploitation of the moon, observation on the moon, scientific basic experiments and technical verification,” China’s space agency said.
Chinese and Russian officials said the countries would “jointly formulate a roadmap” for the construction of the lunar research station and would work closely on the planning, demonstration, design, development, implementation and 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 robotic reconnaissance program. In 2019, China landed the first spacecraft on the other side of the moon, and the Chinese Chang’e 5 mission last year returned the first samples from the lunar surface since 1976, when Russia sent its last robotic mission to the moon.
Russia is developing a lander called Luna 25 that could launch to the moon before the end of this year, the first mission in a revival of the Luna-Soviet era. Two follow-up missions, Luna 26 and Luna 27, will orbit the moon and attempt a landing near the South Pole. The lander Luna 27, which will be launched in 2025, will carry European Space Agency instruments, including a drill and a sophisticated mini-laboratory to survey lunar soil in search of water ice.
European countries have also agreed to launch experiments with Chinese lunar missions.
China’s next robot mission, Chang’e 6, is scheduled for launch in 2023 or 2024. Based on the Chang’e 5 mission last year, the purpose of Chang’e 6 is to collect monsters and send them back to the earth from a place near the moon’s south pole.
Around the same time, China plans to launch the Chang’e 7 mission, an ambitious expedition with many spacecraft, including a lunar orbit, a lander, a rover, a ‘funnel’ to fly over the lunar surface and ‘ a satellite for communication relay.
Before the end of the 2020s, China intends to launch another robotic mission called Chang’e 8 to a location near the lunar south pole. Chang’e 8 will test technologies for space production and the harvesting of lunar resources that can be manned by a landing mission.
Chinese and Russian officials did not say last week when the International Lunar Research Station might be operational, but China had earlier said it could be ready for lunar landings in the 2030s.
The International Lunar Research Station looks like NASA’s Artemis program, which will include a mini-space station in the circumference of the moon, called the Gateway, as well as lengthy crew missions to the south pole of the moon. The purpose of the Artemis program is to establish a permanent human presence on the moon and to refine the technology needed for future trips to Mars.
NASA has signed memoranda of understanding with ESA and the governments of Japan and Canada to work together on the Artemis missions. All are partners of the International Space Station in a low orbit around the earth and will provide important elements of the Gateway space station.
“I think we were disappointed,” said Kathy Lueders, co-administrator of NASA’s board of directors for human reconnaissance and operations. “I think the International Space Station was really an excellent international collaboration, but one of our good partnerships was with our Russian counterparts.”
The International Space Station is expected to remain in operation in the late 2020s, when NASA hopes a commercial company will be ready with a private outpost in a low-Earth orbit. If that happens, NASA and other government space agencies could buy access to the commercial space station for astronauts and scientific experiments, rather than operating the entire research complex.
Russia was “a partner that did things very, very differently, and we learned a lot from it,” Lueders said last month when Russia announced it wanted to work with China. “We honestly learned a ton. We tend to be fine engineers, and they are just robust … So we learned from the partnership with them, and we were hoping to continue the partnership around the lunar surface.
‘We now understand that they have different priorities, and currently they have said that it is not a partnership that matches what they think. But I hope that in time we will forge future partnerships.
‘I feel very strongly that NASA is a way for us to create bonds that bind us through good and bad times. I therefore hope to find a few more ways to help us bridge across nations and to work together peacefully going forward, ‘Lueders said.
“The collaboration between NASA, Roscosmos and other space agencies has been instrumental in the long-term success of the International Space Station,” said Monica Witt, a NASA spokeswoman. “We are eager to expand the relationships and lessons learned at the ISS as we build the Gateway, which will form 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 it does not wish to be part of the Gateway partnership at this time, they have offered to investigate interoperability, and we welcome such a discussion,” Witt said in a written statement. .
NASA wanted Russia to build an airlock to support astronauts by astronauts outside the Gateway. Witt said NASA still plans to add an airlock to the Gateway in 2028, saying the agency will “pursue other options for the airlock provider.”
The US space agency has also entered into agreements called Artemis agreements, which set out principles for exploration and expectations for behavioral norms in space. The principles include peaceful exploration, transparency, interoperability, first aid, the registration of artificial space objects and the disclosure of scientific data.
Early signatories to the Artemis Agreement include the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, Italy, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates.
Russia has shown no intention of signing the agreements. NASA is legally prohibited from entering into bilateral partnerships with China in space exploration.
NASA plans to use a mix of launches using the new heavy lift Space Launch System rocket, commercial rockets, the Orion crew capsule and privately developed, government-funded lunar landers for the Artemis missions.
Russia is NASA’s largest partner on the International Space Station, a partnership that was established in 1993 after the end of the Cold War. But rifts between the partners are increasing as diplomatic relations have soured in recent years.
Last October, the head of Roscosmos – the Russian space agency – said the Artemis program was “too US-centered”.
“Our U.S. partners are actively promoting it,” Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin said in a virtual International Astronautical Congress panel in October. “In our opinion, Lunar Gateway, in its current form, is too US-centered.”
“Russia is unlikely to participate on a large scale,” Rogozin said of the Gateway.
Rogozin said last year that Roscosmos wants to ensure that the next generation of Orel spacecraft can dock at the Gateway. The Orel spacecraft is under development to replace the Russian Soyuz crew capsule, and will be designed to transport astronauts to low-Earth orbit and destinations beyond.
The Orel spacecraft “is designed for future national manned missions, and should the need arise, it could also be used to the benefit of our partners as a backup option to send astronauts into space or bring them back out of orbit,” he said. Rogozin said.
China is also developing a next-generation crew capsule that can bring astronauts home from the moon.
“When we talk about our program, it’s a national program first. “The United States, along with its partners, is working on its Artemis program,” Rogozin said. “Even if Russia does not use the opportunity to participate in the Artemis program, it does not necessarily mean that our vessels do not have to be adapted to join each other.”
In a tweet, Rogozin wrote: ‘The plans of Russia and China on the moon are open to broad international participation. It is not about confrontation, but about cooperation in exploring the moon. ”
Mark Kirasich, NASA’s deputy administrator for advanced reconnaissance systems, said last month that the US space agency would continue with Russia to work on technical standards to ensure that US and Russian spacecraft are capable of docking in space.
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