Crew training and concept of operations testing for future lunar mission at the ESA-DLR LUNA facility

Kurzfassung

The space sector is nowadays experiencing profound changes with the advent of a new commercial era expected to be extended to the forthcoming lunar surface missions. In this context, European institutions will eagerly play a fundamental role in this new lunar renaissance in cooperation with other institutional partners such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Artemis program. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the European Space Agency (ESA) are currently working together towards the construction of LUNA, a lunar analogue facility in Cologne, Germany. This facility will bring together experts from the DLR Cologne campus, the European Astronaut Centre (EAC), the German Space Operations Center (GSOC) and from the surrounding European institutions ranging from industries, research institutions, start-ups and universities. The ultimate ambition of LUNA is to offer a platform where to train all future Moon astronauts by providing the capabilities for a full mission simulation on ground under realistic conditions, also enabling the validation of robotic systems and operations. In fact, cooperation between human and robots will be paramount to roll out a new era of lunar surface exploration missions. In this sense, the LUNA facility will be the first and most advanced of its kind for allowing different engineering and operational teams to work together within the same common platform. The worldwide unique selling point for LUNA will be its scale since it will incorporate a regolith testbed area of 700 m2 that will allow for end-to-end testing of lunar Extravehicular Activities (EVAs) and rover traverses, including prospecting activities for In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). Being able to close the gaps between analogue field activities and lab testing is what characterizes the new facility. The main features of LUNA include a gravity offload system, a solar illumination simulator, a dust and gas laboratories, a regenerative energy system, a future crew habitat and the possibility to integrate Virtual (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) tools. All these features are paramount for utilizing LUNA in a campaign mode set up in support of full Artemis mission simulations, also enabling the possibility for infrastructure deployment and operational concept testing for training. As a technology centre, LUNA will also be utilized as a technology platform for the technical maturation of specific hardware to be flown onto the lunar surface.