Europe and Russia planning a lunar south pole mission?

[PB666]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34504067

I think its kind of weird given the situation in Europe that the EU and Russia would be planning a joint mission. Probably from the European point of view its necessity, the Russians have the power to get them there.

[Kryten]

Remember they're currently working on Exomars together; the planetary science community in both nations know they've much less chance of these kinds of missions without co-operation, so they won't bring in politics unless they have no choice. However, it should be noted the dates in the article are not realistic; Lavochkin does not have the staff to have more than one mission in full development at a time, and Exomars has priority. Take into account that there's a good chance Exomars 2018 will actually end up being Exomars 2020, and this could get shunted well into the 2030s.

[sgt_flyer]

Well, the russians do have the most experience in landing automatic probes on the moon - and especially with the proposed name of the mission, luna 27, they will be prominent in creating the lander. Now, they might go with ariane 5 (or ariane 6-4 by then) rather than proton or angara 5 - ESA's rocket still have a much better payload capabilities on GTO and beyond than the russian launcher (especially if they want to go for a polar landing with a spacecraft as heavy as the previous luna landers)

[K^2]

Once you take a couple of steps from the very top, Russian space agency is pretty apolitical. For starters, the concentration of intelligent people who can see through gov't's BS is much higher there. And also, as you'd expect, most of them care more about space and rockets than what's happening between countries. They want to do cool stuff with anyone else who wants to do cool stuff.

Funding is a separate issue, but I suspect that Western partners end up fronting most of the bills on shared projects like that. At which point, none of the top suits in the agency have grounds for complaints.

[fredinno]

Perhaps NASA could get on board with this, and integrate this with their completed "Morpheus" lander, for landing 1T payloads on the moon, then we could get this before EM-2, then use this technology to have an international Moon mission program after the lunar Orbital Station.

[Shania_L]

Not likely, ESA has been burned trying to co-operate with NASA on big budget missions before, that is the whole reason Exo-Mars is collaborative with Russia.

NASA is too tied in with the 'current' ruling party in the US, one little election and they shift gears in another direction, then whoops that multi billion mission we were working on? well we're not doing it anymore sux to be you.

[Bill Phil]

Planning does not equal "going to do it."

[PB666]

Planning does not equal "going to do it."

But the US has done alot, the problem is that we can't piece together something big by ourselves due to, fo lack of a better word, legacy problems. As said space pays off and pays back, so throwing money at it, as long as its an actual high tech project pays back. Unfortunately multiplyer effects are over the head of most politicians, particularly of the current vintage.

My only thing is what are they going to do on the south pole of the moon. I am task oriented, are they going to place an observatory, some sort of lunar staging area, check the availability of water? If its not about the science its a vanity trip that is hard to justify.

[vger]

The U.S. is still bumming Russia for rides. I don't see the problem.

[Nibb31]

My only thing is what are they going to do on the south pole of the moon. I am task oriented, are they going to place an observatory, some sort of lunar staging area, check the availability of water? If its not about the science its a vanity trip that is hard to justify.

The lunar poles are the most interesting place on the Moon, and are mostly unexplored. If there is ever a Moon base, it's likely to be at Shackleton Crater. It offers permanently shadowed areas that are likely to have solid ice and permanently exposed areas, which are perfect for solar power.

[Kryten]

Well, the russians do have the most experience in landing automatic probes on the moon - and especially with the proposed name of the mission, luna 27, they will be prominent in creating the lander. Now, they might go with ariane 5 (or ariane 6-4 by then) rather than proton or angara 5 - ESA's rocket still have a much better payload capabilities on GTO and beyond than the russian launcher (especially if they want to go for a polar landing with a spacecraft as heavy as the previous luna landers)

It was originally designed to fly on GSLV, there's no way it requires any of those. Soyuz-fregat would do the job fine.

[sgt_flyer]

Well - the various artist rendering of luna resurs show a similar spacecraft than the Ye-8 series - and the lunokhod carriers version weighted a bit more than 5 tons fully fueled.

Proton fairing is 5m in diameter in the configuration that launched ye-8 series spacecraft (though, it needs to match the block-D fairing) - GSLV mk-II fairing is 4m in diameter.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/luna_resurs.html

I doubt the russians would want to redevellop miniaturised versions of the lander's engines - so they instead must have given the spacecraft a really drastic reduce in weight (and subsequantely fuel) by using more recent materials - unless they plan to use ion thrusters on the orbiter / transfer stage to make up for it.

(That is, is if the artist's render are close to what the lander really looks like if the russians recreated a brand new lander)

[Virtualgenius]

The Chinese will be the ones that will achieve the next lot of major achievements in space in my opinion

[PB666]

the problem is the direction of the pole during the year and solr exposure. It may be true that the sun facing surface is unpleasantly hot, the unexposed surface is unpleasnatly cold. Anyway granrted there is very litlle choice since the lunar day is so long they will have to try someplace which has a midniggt sun year round.

[Kryten]

Well - the various artist rendering of luna resurs show a similar spacecraft than the Ye-8 series - and the lunokhod carriers version weighted a bit more than 5 tons fully fueled.

It's barely a ton, as noted on the page you linked. It has no commonality with Ye-8 other than the manufacturer.