Italian Moon Plans Options

[ljk4-1]

From FPSPACE by Paolo Ulivi - paolo.ulivi at tiscali.it

Wed Feb 15 15:50:18 EST 2006

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Published on line http://www.asi.it/html/ita/news/20060124_pasn.pdf (in
Italian)

Some excerpts:

- It confirms (page 48) that a national automatic lunar mission to built
a farside observatory (although it is called the dark side!) is planned
for 2010-2011, including technologies for mobility, drilling etc.

- In March 2004 an ASI delegation and a Russian delegation visited the
Malindi space center to verify the feasibility of reusing the San Marco
launch platform for START-1 launcher. The result of the visit was
extremely positive and both sides agreed on the feasibility (page 69)

[dilo]

Thanks for the very interesting link!
In the article, there is a little information about this particular mission.
It belongs to "Solar System Exploration" missions family.
At page 48 they simply say:
"National lunar mission with the following main objectives: remote sensing package, orbital segment, in-situ science package. Study and realizations of enabling technologies prototypes: lander, drill, sample management, high surface mobility. Automated telescope to install on the moon dark side."

You can find also some referring items at page 33 (roadmap) and page 68:
"ASI proposed a small launcher (Vega) ... to be reconfigured for lunar surface"; one of the initiatives established by a joined Task Force NASA-ASI is a moon mission to be used as an observing base for Earth and neariest bodies (NASA showed interest to the idea). Finally, at page 77, they define as "very challenging" this project for the entire national industrial pipeline.