The U.S. Artenis project is in full swing. The goal of the Artenis project is to establish a lunar base and realize the Moon-Earth research continuous transfer station. The mission plans to establish a research station at the moon's South Pole and an auxiliary research station in lunar orbit called Lunar Gateway. As part of that plan, there are plans to launch an unrewritten lunar mission, Artenis 1, as early as July 2022. However, this goal will also be realized in China!
Russia and China are poised to sign a "lunar base" agreement that aims to send manned missions to the moon by 2025 and establish a regulatory framework for the exploration and extraction of natural resources on the moon, Mars and elsewhere, according to the latest news.
The joint Chinese-Russian mission aims to establish a lunar base and install a space station in lunar orbit. The station is intended to be the most advanced experimental research facility ever built on the lunar surface or in orbit. Last June, Roscosmos and the China National Space Administration (CNSA) presented a roadmap for the ILRS (International Space Station) at the Global Space Exploration Conference (2021 GLEX).
The station is planned to have five facilities and nine modules to support long - and short-term missions to the lunar surface and orbit, and construction of the station is expected to be completed by 2035, according to a roadmap divided into three phases. These include a modern transport facility to support round-trip transfers between Earth and the moon, orbit around the moon, soft landings, takeoff on the lunar surface, and re-entry to Earth 39bet-xì dách-phỏm miền bắc-tiến lên miền bắc-xóc đĩa-game bắn cá.
Ostensibly, the long-term support facility will be equipped with a command center, energy and supply modules, and thermal management, and the lunar transport and operations facility will help the module move surfaces and support excavation or sampling. The other two are the lunar science facility for in-orbit and ground experiments and the ground support and application facility. As for the modules, the design reportedly includes a "jumping robot" and smart mini rovers that can move around the lunar surface.
The first phase of ILRS construction
The space station is planned to be built in three phases, with the first phase comprising six missions, including China's Chang 'e 4, 6 and 7 missions and Russia's Luna 25, 26 and 27 missions. The first phase, which involves collecting data and verifying high-precision soft landings, is expected to last until 2025.
In January 2019, the Chang 'e-4 mission sent a landing platform and a rover called Yutu-2 to the far side of the moon, the first soft landing by a country on Earth.
Yutu-2 landed in January 2019 at the Von Karman Crater in the Aitken Basin at the moon's South Pole. Chang 'e-4 is designed to explore the geology of the region. Chang 'e-6 and Chang' e-7 are expected to be launched around 2025, with Chang 'e-6 bringing back lunar samples weighing up to 2 kilograms and Chang' e-7 on a mission to land on the moon's South Pole and explore local natural resources. Chang 'e-7 is made up of five separate spacecraft, namely an orbiter, a lander, a rover, a jump probe and a polar relay satellite.
Meanwhile, Russia also plans to launch its Moon-25 mission in August 2022, reviving a series of Soviet-era robotic missions to the moon that ended decades ago. The last in the series is Luna 24, which returned about 6 ounces (170 grams) of lunar material to Earth in 1976.
The LunA-25 lunar probe will launch on a Soyuz-2.1B rocket with the Frega upper stage from Vostoni Spaceport in the far eastern Amur region. The probe's main landing destination is the moon's South Pole region, specifically a spot north of Boguslavsky Crater.
According to Russia's Rocket Design Agency, NPO Lavochkin has built the Luna 25 lander. The mission has three main tasks: developing soft landing technology; study of the inner structure of the lunar circumpolar region and exploration of natural resources, including water; study the effects of cosmic rays and electromagnetic radiation on the lunar surface. In addition, Luna25 will use a suite of onboard sensors to study dust particles in the lunar surface and extra-lunar atmosphere.
Luna 25 also has a camera called Pilot-D, a demonstration terrain relative navigation system developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). However, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, ESA announced in April that it had decided to stop cooperating with Russia's Luna Series robotic lunar missions. Now, Pilot-D will not be part of the Luna 25 mission.
Shortly after the end of the ESA cooperation, Roskosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin announced that the planned launches of Luna 26 and Luna 27 in 2024 and 2025, respectively, would also be delayed.
The second and third stages of ILRS
After the completion of the first phase in 2025, which may be delayed to take into account the possible delays of Luna 26 and Luna 27, the second phase, known as the "construction" phase, will begin in 2026 and is expected to last until 2035. The construction phase will be divided into two sub-phases, with the first phase from 2026 to 2030 involving technical verification, sample return, large-scale cargo delivery and the start of joint operations. Two missions are planned during this period, the Chinese CE-8 and the Russian LunA-28.
The second phase of the second phase will take place between 2030 and 2035 and involves completing in-orbit and lunar surface infrastructure for energy, communications, practical resource utilization and other technologies. Five joint missions, named ILRS-1-5, are planned for this phase, which will be launched by a Russian superheavy launch vehicle. The third phase will begin manned landings after 2036, when the ILRS are largely complete and humans can conduct research and exploration.
Meanwhile, China and Russia are seeking to add more countries to the ILR, and there have been reported talks with ESA, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. However, since ESA pulled out of Russia's Luna series of missions to the Moon during the war in Ukraine, the project is likely to be much less attractive to other countries.