HELSINKI — European-Chinese cooperation in lunar exploration may be coming to an end, despite successful cooperation on the ongoing Chang’e-6 mission.
ESA provided payloads for China’s Chang’e-6 composite lunar far-side sample return mission, which launched on May 3. The mission aims to collect and return samples from the far side of the Moon, providing unprecedented insights into the composition and history of the Moon.
The instrument, developed by the Swedish Institute of Astrophysics, was on board the Chang’e-6 lander, which landed and collected samples in the mid-latitude Apollo Crater in the Antarctic-Aitken Basin earlier this month.
A European team working with the Negative Ions on the Lunar Surface (NILS) instrument has confirmed the success of its scientific mission: the payload detected negative ions on the lunar surface for the first time.
“The discovery of a new component of plasma on the lunar surface opens up new perspectives for astrophysics and human and robotic missions in a new era of lunar exploration,” ESA said.
China is preparing for two lunar Antarctic missions: Chang’e 7 around 2026 and Chang’e 8, a local resource utilization and technology mission no earlier than 2028.
However, the success of the NILS experimental collaboration with Chang’e-6 may mark the end of an era of lunar cooperation between ESA and China.
“At this stage there has been no decision to continue cooperation on Chang’e 7 or 8,” ESA’s international relations manager Karl Bergquist said. Space News.
Furthermore, in the future, ESA will not be involved in the China-led International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).
“ESA will not cooperate with ILRS as this is a Sino-Russian initiative and space cooperation with Russia is currently under an embargo,” Bergquist said.
The move marks the latest blow to China-Europe space cooperation. Last year, ESA also announced that it would no longer pursue the opportunity to send European astronauts to the Tiangong Space Station. China and ESA had previously held training exchanges.
ILRS, Partners and Russia Ratification
China and Russia officially announced a joint roadmap for the project in St. Petersburg in June 2021. The lunar base will initially be built by robots and will be constructed by launching a super-heavy rocket in the 2030s. Manned missions are also planned.
Moscow and Beijing had been considering involving ESA and its member states in the project. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 put an end to any prospects for cooperation.
China has taken a leading role in the ILRS since 2022. The project will be headquartered in China. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) and its Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL) have been at the center of partner-solicitation efforts, sometimes without mentioning Russia as a partner. Many of these efforts, like China’s broader diplomatic efforts, have been focused on the “Global South.”
Currently, 11 countries and other organizations are members. According to Russian media reports, Turkey has also applied to join the ILRS. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on June 12 ratifying the intergovernmental agreement with China on the creation of the ILRS.
Meanwhile, the European Space Agency is involved in the Gateway and Artemis programs, and many of its member states are signatories to the Artemis Accords, which currently have 42 nations signed onto them.
The TArtemis and ILRS projects and related diplomatic efforts appear to form separate groups, although there is some overlap. This includes Bahrain, which has also signed the agreement and recently agreed to collaborate with Egypt on the development of a hyperspectral imager for Chang’e-7.
As for its post-ISS human spaceflight programme (which previously included Tiangong), ESA has signed agreements with STARlabs for the Vast commercial space station.
Cooperation with China will continue at least for the foreseeable future: The samples collected by Chang’e-6 are currently in lunar orbit and are scheduled to return to Earth around June 25.
ESA will provide ground support for Chang’e-6, as it did for Chang’e-5, through its ESTRACK network of tracking stations.
The Maspalomas base on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria will track the Chang’e-6 spacecraft as it returns to Earth around June 25. The Kourou base in French Guiana tracked the spacecraft for several hours after launch to confirm its orbit.
