I'm standing on the Moon, and something reminds me of home. Although I'm surrounded by darkness, grey dreariness and lots of dust and stones, something keeps bringing my thoughts back to our house in Chiemgau. I don't see anything that resembles my cosy home, with its greens and blues, so where does this feeling come from?
I listen carefully, and then I hear it – the monotonous humming with loud, slightly metallic sounds. It's an excavator, and this noise is the link! Although our family has been living in our house for ten years, we've only just started building the garage, and currently there’s an excavator digging the foundations.
FLEXhab next to the LUNA hall in Cologne
The Flexhab space habitat has been standing right next to the LUNA simulation hall since mid-April. This is where future missions will be prepared and everyday working life in space tested.
Credit:
DLR/ESA
Of course, I'm not standing on the actual Moon, but in the LUNA hall in Cologne, our Moon analogue research facility. Nevertheless, there are some interesting parallels. There really are excavators at work both at home and here. At home, our 'family habitat unit' has been standing for ten years and now the 'car storage hall' is being added. In Cologne, our LUNA hall has been standing for ten months and now the FLEXhab space habitat unit is being constructed alongside it.
A space mobile home in a container for lunar research
Fast forward four weeks to mid-April 2025, and the FLEXhab now stands alongside the LUNA hall, where final tests and acceptance sign-offs are currently underway. We've had a sort of space mobile home in a container constructed for us, precisely to our specifications. We wanted living quarters for four astronauts that were as versatile as possible and covered the widest possible range of research options.
The social area
A cosy dining area in a small space. Here, the terrestrial astronauts can take a break from their daily work on the 'Moon', i.e. in the laboratory and LUNA hall.
And that's exactly what we've got: the FLEXhab offers space for four astronauts sleeping in small cabins. There's a little kitchen, a laboratory area, and an airlock where the shower and toilet are located. The cosy living room – the communal area for this compact shared accommodation – is particularly nice.
From rock analysis to psychological experiments – anything is possible
FLEXhab offers the space community tremendous opportunities. We can conduct studies on how a habitat should be optimally and functionally equipped and arranged. We can research which methods of rock analysis can be practically carried out on site in such a confined space in the future, and we can test various decontamination methods to find out how to minimise the amount of dust entering the living space.
Working as if on the moon
Although the FLEXhab container is not very spacious, it offers a work area for a wide range of tasks. For example, rock or substrate samples can be analysed here and prepared for 'return' to Earth.
We are able to connect a new life support system to the FLEXhab and test whether the oxygen supply and carbon dioxide removal work are effective, safe in the knowledge that here on Earth we can open the doors and leave the container at any time. The impact of group dynamics on team performance in such a small habitat can also be investigated. Then there's the airlock, lighting and wastewater processing – we can dock on to everything, turn everything into a research object, change everything, and test or correct errors. The FLEXhab significantly expands the capabilities of LUNA.
A typical working day on the Moon
Functional sleeping berths
The sleeping area is not particularly comfortable, as a small padded berth has to suffice for the duration of a space mission. But then again, this is no glamping trip.
Personally, what I like best is the fact that we can use the FLEXhab to simulate future multi-day missions on the lunar surface – together with the Flight Control Team in Oberpfaffenhofen. The astronauts would sleep and eat in the FLEXhab and then prepare for and set off on their lunar excursion. With the help of the control centre, they would then explore the lunar surface, conduct their experiments and collect rock samples.
We could test the cleaning of the space suits, and perhaps the following working day we could examine the collection rate of simulated Moon samples in the habitat. These would then be discussed with the experts in the control centre and finally some of them would be packed for transport 'back' to Earth. The next day another extravehicular activity could follow.
However, the habitat is not the final element to be attached to LUNA. When EDEN LUNA, the automatic lunar greenhouse, arrives in Cologne, the facility will take another big step forward and attract the interest of an even wider range of scientists. And we have many more ideas in mind – watch this space!
For now, I'm just happy that the FLEXhab is finally here. Whether I'll be able to do without my hotel room in Cologne in the future remains to be seen – I'll have to check with our internal travel agency about that.
