Dossiers Space / Espace Back to previous selection / Retour à la sélection précédente The First Piece of Infrastructure for the Development of the Moon Has Been Approved 8 February 2020 EIRNS—The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved the Lunar Pathfinder satellite, proposed by England’s Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. It will be a communications satellite similar to those that circle the Earth, and the first piece of infrastructure to be deployed at the Moon. At the Moon, the satellite will function as a communications relay between spacecraft on the lunar surface and the Earth. Currently, countries that plan to place landers and rovers on the Moon will have to provide their own orbiting communications relay satellite. But as more and newer space nations and private companies plan lunar missions, Surrey Satellite would offer communication services that can simply be purchased. Similarly on Earth, most companies and newly industrializing countries buy capacity on commercial satellites, rather than building their own. The orbit of such a commercial communications satellite could be flexible and set to be useful for many kinds of functions. For example, for communication from the lunar south pole, the craft could be in an highly elliptical orbit that would provide extended periods of visibility at the pole. Surrey Satellite was created by young people from the University of Surrey 30 years ago, and has pioneered the development of small satellites, together with developing countries. [MGF]