Terrae Novae destinations: Moon

At the beginning of this decade, space exploration is at an unprecedented crossroads.

When embarking on an ambitious and challenging journey, having a good roadmap is always recommended.

Terrae Novae is ESA’s exploration programme. The Terrae Novae 2030+ strategy roadmap has been created as a flexible instrument with options to tune the decisions that must be taken for European exploration in view of scientific and technological breakthroughs and considering the evolving political and programmatic landscape, as well as the level of ambition and affordability at the time the decisions are taken.

Terrae Novae is not only literally about exploring new worlds, but by describing the limitless opportunities for discovery, economic growth and inspiration it also expresses our ambitions for Europe’s future innovators, scientists and explorers.

We hope that everyone can use this roadmap to make our three-part vision a reality: to continue a strong presence working in low-Earth orbit, to send the first European astronauts to explore the Moon throughout the 2030s, and to prepare Europe’s role in the first historic human voyage to Mars.

While always delivering measurable benefits for society today and tomorrow, the top objectives are threefold: to create new opportunities in Earth orbit for a sustained European presence in the post-International Space Station era, to enable the first European to explore the Moon’s surface by 2030 as a step towards sustainable lunar exploration in the 2030s, and to prepare the horizon goal of Europe being part of the first human mission to Mars.

The Terrae Novae 2030+ strategy roadmap has ambitious goals for each of the three exploration destinations low Earth orbit, Moon and Mars. The high-level ambitious goal for the Moon is to have the first European astronaut land on the Moon before 2030 by providing autonomous Moon landing capabilities for European-led missions within an international cooperation context, developing scientific and infrastructure assets, and preparing for sustained lunar exploration in the 2030s, possibly also seizing new cooperation opportunities in human landing and surface mobility capabilities.

For more on ESA’s human and robotic exploration strategy see: https://www.esa.int/terraenovae