“With great pleasure we will remove their devices.” Europe refused to fly to the moon with Russia

The European Space Agency (ESA) ended its cooperation with Russia on the lunar program. This decision was taken by the Board of Directors, published on the agency’s website.

The break in the partnership resulted from a Russian special operation in Ukraine, where many Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russia. Previously, ESA and Roscosmos collaborated on the Luna-25, -26 and -27 spacecraft, some of which should be equipped with European vehicles. We’re talking specifically about the PILOT-D camera and the Luna-27 PROSPECT cryogenic drilling rig on the Luna-25, which will launch in August 2022.

However, ESA states that this payload is of extreme scientific importance, so the agency is looking for alternative methods to get it to the moon.

Therefore, we have already managed to agree to send PROSPECT to one of the vehicles of the CLPS program created by NASA to involve a large number of small private contractors in the space industry. The PROSPECT drill rig is expected to extract lunar rock samples from heating and then transport them to an automated mini-chemistry lab. With its help, scientists plan to establish the chemical composition of the soil and find out whether it is easy to extract water, oxygen and other useful substances from it.

PILOT-D is an experimental European navigation camera designed to test technology for a safe automatic landing on the moon. ESA is currently looking for a private contractor for this instrument as well.

Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, commented on this ESA decision on his Telegram channel: “So we will remove their devices from our devices. A European woman with a car, a Russian mare is easier.”

The Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences also spoke about the break in partnership. The PILOT-D camera was supposed to capture the moment of landing of the device in the interests of ESA, and Russia does not need it at all.

Europeans wanted to use this data in their future projects. We showed them the courtesy of installing this camera. We had to put this camera to an advantage, now instead of shooting something Russian, we will shoot Europe with great pleasure, ”Igor Mitrofanov, head of the Department of Nuclear Planetaryology at IKI RAS, told socialbites.ca.

No European instruments were planned for Luna 26, and ESA only promised to help use ground stations to receive a signal from the Moon.

According to Mitrofanov, the installation of PROSPECT was also burdensome for the Russian side.

“It was planned to install a large European exercise and a large analytical instrument on the Luna-27, which greatly increased the mass. “And now that they’re splitting up with it makes it a lot easier, because we independently did our drill with a much lower mass and now we have a problem with the mass being removed,” he said.

said.

The European drilling rig weighs 41 kg, and the Russian drilling rig is within 30 kg. According to the scientist, the design of the Russian drilling rig at IKI RAS began in advance for safety reasons.

“We know this story about the Mistrals and other things, it is clear that the Russian Federation should have its own exercise. That the Europeans themselves asked us with their instruments, we did not run and we did not invite them. They had their own lunar program, they wanted to land on the Pole with landers. But they were not paid, they came to us. It was still under Popovkin (head of Roscosmos from 2011 to 2013), and they were told – let’s help you, ”explained Mitrofanov.

Among space projects, the Moon program was not the first victim of the conflict between Russia and the West. In March, the Governing Council passed a similar decision regarding the ExoMars-2022 project, and now Europeans are looking for alternative routes to get the Rosalind Franklin rover to Mars.