European Space Agency to negotiate with NASA on future lunar missions

The European Space Agency (ESA) is set to restart talks regarding Europe’s future participation in NASA missions after the US-based space agency made some strategic changes regarding its lunar program.

Earlier this month, NASA announced plans to suspend its Gateway lunar orbital space station efforts, aiming to shift its focus towards building a base on the Moon’s surface.

In the wake of this ambitious plan, NASA chief Jared Isaacman unveiled an ambitious $20 billion plan to build a lunar base. The base will host more robotic landers and a fleet of drones, thereby preparing the base for using nuclear power on the lunar surface in the next few years.

The overhauling proved a setback for Europe and its role in future space exploration. The ESA had an agreement with NASA for three astronaut flights to Gateway. Europe was also to deliver components of Gateway.

The Gateway is postponed, therefore I will need to sit down with the administrator, Jared Isaacman, and the NASA team, to negotiate how these seats that have been earmarked for the Gateway can be utilized for the surface," ESA head Josef Aschbacher told AFP.

The ESA director general said, "this is a discussion that needs to take place right now."

"How many seats for the surface flight, or under which conditions, or what is the countervalue that Europe needs to bring into this bargaining and this discussion?" he said.

According to Aschbacher, "The goal is to have Europeans walking on the Moon.”

While talking about self-sufficiency in resources, he said, "But of course, the dream, or the objective, is that eventually Europe develops its own technologies and capacities to have more autonomy on human spaceflight."

Besides ESA, the Japanese space agency is planning to negotiate with NASA.