To the Moon and Mars!

This year has seen some exciting developments in space exploration – and I’m thrilled that Airbus is at the heart of the action. The vessel that will propel the first woman to the Moon is being assembled right now in our clean rooms and we’ve kicked-off design of the spacecraft which will return the first ever samples from Mars. 

Off to the Moon!

We couldn’t be prouder to deliver Europe’s contribution – together with the European Space Agency – to putting the first woman and next man on the Moon. This contribution takes the shape of the Orion European Service Module (ESM), the first time that Europe has supplied critical functions to a US human spaceflight mission.

Going to the Moon starts in Europe: we build Artemis

As the powerhouse of the spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis missions, it will provide the propulsion system to get astronauts to the Moon, and the consumables they need to stay alive.

I’ve seen the ESM for myself and it’s such an impressive sight to stand beneath this module which will be blasting astronauts back to the Moon... All this, thanks to some of the world’s greatest minds in space exploration.

But Airbus’ vision doesn’t stop there. Europe is entering a new decade of exploration. Return to the Moon makes sense: it’s close enough to Earth, but has the resources to reach destinations further away and can revolutionise the space economy in Earth orbit.

How will Airbus enable this? In short, we are ready to build a lander and tug. The first lunar ecosystem will be a machine society. Vehicles will need to get there, then find their own way around and make their own decisions – and we have already developed exactly these technologies for ESA’s ExoMars rover.

Europe’s EL3 lander will deliver scientific or logistic payloads to the lunar surface

We believe that human settlement on the Moon is one of the next essential steps in Space exploration which is why we have invested several million euros of our own R&D over the last 2 years on important building blocks specifically for moon missions. Momentum is clearly gathering as we secured an ESA lander study this autumn and have just been down-selected for a logistics vehicle study.

Of course the holy grail is for humans to be able to live off the land – and three months ago, Airbus made a breakthrough in this area. Together with partners from industry and research institutions, we succeeded in extracting oxygen and metals from regolith. In testing, we generated 0.2 litres of oxygen from simulated regolith in just a short time. This is a small first step, but the way towards an operational system is now clear. ROXY is a simple, inexpensive process – but most importantly, and unlike similar attempts around the world, it requires no materials from Earth.

Converting Moon dust to oxygen to support human settlement on the Moon

The first moon-return missions will only allow astronauts to stay a short while. What if Europe flies there first and leaves supplies on the Moon that enable a 2 week stay? Just imagine setting up a small-scale ROXY factory on the moon with an additive-layer manufacturing processing unit by its side and you would have oxygen supply and manufacturing capability in space.

In a nutshell, Airbus is aligning all the bricks for a lunar ecosystem.

But this is only part of the story. I am of course talking about Mars... The Moon is about expansion and presence, while Mars is the frontier of discovery – and it’s very often an international endeavour.

First, the Euro-Russian ExoMars rover mission, now set for launch in 2022 – on which Airbus UK has spent years refining autonomous guidance and navigation technology. This world-class development will enable the rover to travel between sites of interest much more quickly than by being driven remotely in real time from Earth.

The rover will search for signs of past or present life on Mars and is equipped with a 2m drill to take samples from below the surface.

Europe’s first planetary rover: ‘Rosalind Franklin’ ExoMars 

Next, we are excited to have been chosen by ESA for the leading European role on the highly ambitious, international Mars Sample Return mega-mission where NASA and ESA are joining forces. It will be the Airbus-built Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) spacecraft that will bring the first ever samples back from the Red Planet.

For ERO, Airbus will use its autonomous rendezvous and docking expertise along with recent guidance, navigation and control developments from JUICE, Europe’s first mission to Jupiter.

Returning the first ever samples from Mars

The ERO spacecraft will take about a year to reach Mars, using a mass-efficient hybrid propulsion system combining electric propulsion – an area in which Airbus excels – for the cruise and spiral down phases and chemical propulsion for Mars orbit insertion.

For the second part of its mission, ERO will detect, rendezvous with, and capture a basketball-size object housing sample tubes collected by the Sample Fetch Rover – also set to be built by Airbus. All this over 50 million km away from ground control!

Once captured, the samples will be safely transported back from Mars to Earth in another year-long journey on board our Earth Return Orbiter. It is truly mind-blowing to be part of such ambitious ventures, powered by the ingenuity of our engineers.

In conclusion, it is vital that Europe continue investing in technologies that keep pushing back the realms of the impossible, so we join other space powers in furthering human knowledge of our universe, but also so that we further science and technology to benefit humankind on Earth.