The German Aerospace Center (DLR), which acts as the national space agency, told Sputnik that it was considering the option of taking part in Russian Luna-28 mission, which aims to deliver samples of lunar soil to Earth
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th August, 2019) The German Aerospace Center (DLR), which acts as the national space agency, told Sputnik that it was considering the option of taking part in Russian Luna-28 mission, which aims to deliver samples of lunar soil to Earth.
In January, Director of the Space Research Institute of the Russian academy of Sciences Lev Zelenyi told Sputnik that the delivery of frozen samples of lunar soil to Earth the Luna-28 automatic interplanetary spacecraft (Luna-Grunt rover) is scheduled for around 2027.
"Russia for us is a partner in space. Our astronauts are going up to the International Space Station on Soyuz rockets. We have recently launched an X-ray telescope together with [Russian space agency] Roscosmos. We have ongoing activities, hopefully in the future, in lunar exploration ... For example, yesterday and today, we had a discussion with our Russian partners on the participation [of Germany] in the Russian lunar program. European Space Agency (ESA) does it as well, but then we help ESA, but we do it independently on that, with our own capabilities," Prof. Dr. Hansjoerg Dittus, DLR's executive board member for space research and technology, said.
The German space agency may provide technologies for the upcoming lunar mission, the executive noted.
"We had been asked whether we would be willing to step into the Lunar program. And it is an interesting program, to be honest. This is a consistent program, and we will see how we can bring in our technology, maybe starting the second half of the 2020s, 2025 when projects like Lunar-28 become realized. We have plans to bring our technology up the Moon with our Russian partners," Dittus said.
Moreover, Germany and Russia may start a student exchange program for space sciences, the DLR official noted.
"Presently, we are discussing also the question of maybe exchanging people with the universities. This is always important that we have an exchange ... We have our university partners here, for example, Bauman [Technical University], Moscow Aviation Institute, Lomonosov Moscow State University," Dittus added.
Roscosmos said earlier in the month that it was discussing the possibility for German specialists to participate in the Luna-28 mission.
