Space scientists set out plans today for a German mission to the moon, with a robotic lander touching down by 2018 at the latest and space "trucks" beginning regular landings two years later, according to dpa. Peter Kyr, who heads the team of space-flight experts at the EADS-Astrium company in Bremen, said detailed study to develop a lander would begin next month. The project is being paid for by DLR, the German aerospace agency. Kyr said Germany needed to figure out which technologies were needed for soft landings without control from earth. The automated lander would use optical sensors to land entirely under its own control. A report, to cost 1 million euros (1.4 million dollars), is to be returned to DLR by the start of 2010. DLR is then to call tenders for a test lander which would practise soft touchdowns on earth after being dropped from a helicopter 1,500 metres up in the sky. "From that point onwards, the procedures will be the same, apart from the fact that gravity on earth is six times greater, which we will have to adjust for with extra retro-rockets," Kyr said. EADS-Astrium has already built a space truck, the ATV, and the final stage of the Ariane 5 space rockets. If successful, the test lander could fly to the moon between 2016 and 2018. Kyr said the project was not in competition with other European attempts to reach the moon, but would complement them. The European Space Agency (ESA) has suggested the moon be used as an advance base to explore the Solar System. An EADS-Astrium executive, Michael Menking, said study of the moon could also reveal much about the origins of the earth.
