JAKARTA - The European Space Agency (ESA) has ended its collaboration with Russia on future missions to the Moon due to its conflict with Ukraine.
ESA will no longer cooperate with the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) on science missions Luna 25, 26 or 27. However, ESA has not stopped its goal of exploring the Moon.
He intends to fly the critical technology on three robotic missions to the Moon independently, starting with the scheduled launch of Luna 25 in August.
"Following Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the Director General of ESA has initiated a comprehensive review of all activities currently carried out in cooperation with Russia and Ukraine," the ESA said in a statement.
ESA explained, the goal is to determine the possible consequences of this new geopolitical context for ESA's programs, activities and create a more resilient and robust space infrastructure in Europe.
"Russia's aggression against Ukraine and the sanctions imposed are a fundamental change of circumstances and make it impossible for the ESA to implement the planned cooperation to the Moon," the ESA said.
Instead, ESA will fly the Drill Package for Resource Observation and in-Situ Prospecting for Exploration, Commercial Exploration and Transportation (PROSPECT) for the Luna 27 mission, and navigation cameras for Luna 25. , on a commercial spacecraft as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
The agency is also currently working on alternative routes to fly pilot precision landing and hazard avoidance technology, which is aimed at the Luna 27 and is essential to the proposed European Large Logistics Lander.
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The latest announcement comes nearly a month after ESA also revealed it had officially suspended its Mars rover mission in Europe for the same reason.
Earlier last month the ESA said it was impossible to continue working with Roscosmos on the British-made Mars rover project, which has suffered repeated delays since the idea was first approved in 2005.
Officially known as ExoMars, the mission to send rover Rosalind Franklin to the Red Planet was planned for September this year. However, the entire project is now under threat due to the worsening diplomatic crisis over the war in Ukraine.
Even so, ESA has been replaced with Thales Alenia Space of Italy is studying potential ways forward for the mission Rosalind Franklin will carry out without Russian involvement.
Lastly, ESA has also signed an agreement with the Japan Space Agency (JAXA), which will fly a mass spectrometer on a lunar rover mission, Japan's ISRO LUPEX, scheduled for 2024.
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