Italy’s Plans for Moon Exploration
Sylvie Espinasse1, Simonetta Di Pippo1
1Italian Space Agency – Viale Liegi, 26 – 00198 Roma - Italy +39-068567299; [email protected]
Abstract. By the end of 2005, the Italian Space Agency made the proposal to the Italian government to elaborate a “Vision” for a national programme of Moon exploration. This topic has been inserted on a long term prospective and with adequate resources in the National AeroSpace Plan 2006-2008 approved by the Italian government early 2006.
After having identified together with the national scientific and industrial community the key elements to be examined such as scientific objectives and main building blocks of the programme, through an invitation to tender, ASI has issued in July 2006, 16 contracts to carry out studies related to each key element.
Three studies were devoted to the science of the Moon and its resources, the observation of the Earth from the Moon and the observation of the universe from the Moon. All the others were dedicated to technologies for transportation, platforms and payloads. The scientific objectives derived from the scientific studies constitute the rationale to build and implement the roadmap for the Italian exploration of the Moon. The technological studies are issuing solutions and tools to reach the scientific objectives having high priority.
The roadmap for Moon exploration drawn on the basis of the outcomes of these studies will be presented in order to illustrate the scientific objectives of this national programme and the missions that could be planned accordingly.
The presentation is also aimed at exciting some curiosity from potential partners for discussion and collaborations in synergy with other national/international programmes. In particular, all these studies were also carried out as a broad preparatory activity for Italian industries and scientific community in order to be ready to play an important role if a Lunar mission is selected in the framework of the ESA Aurora Programme for the NEXT mission.
Last, Italy is also looking at human exploration based on the experience acquired on the International Space Station with studies and experiments related to innovative technologies for pressurized modules as inflatable structures and participating actively to the ESA Aurora Core Programme in the field of life support systems.
PRINCIPAL AUTHOR’S BIO (~50 WORDS)
S. Espinasse is working at the Italian Space Agency where she is in charge of the Italian participation to the ESA missions Rosetta, SMART-1 and Venus Express and to the NASA mission Dawn. She is deputy PM and member of the Steering Committee of the Rosetta Lander Philae. She is coordinating the scientific aspects of the ASI Moon exploration programme and she is Delegate to the ESA HME Programme Board.
ILEWG 9th International Conference on Exploration and Utilization of the Moon, ICEUM9/ILC2007