All Moon-related missions and projects

Destination Moon

Earth's Moon in the night sky
With a surface area of almost 38 million square kilometres, the Moon is the smallest of the inner Solar System's terrestrial bodies. It is the only celestial body ever visited by humans.
Image: 1/7, Credit:

NASA

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The Orion spacecraft orbits the Moon
This artist's impression shows the Orion crew capsule with its European Service Module (ESM) orbiting the Moon. As part of NASA's Artemis programme, Orion will carry astronauts and cargo to lunar orbit and return them back to Earth.
Image: 2/7, Credit:

NASA/ESA/ATG Medialab

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A simulated lunar surface spanning 700 square metres
The regolith simulant in the LUNA facility is made of basalt originating from a quarry in the Rhine-Sieg district of North Rhine-Westphalia. The chemical, physical and geotechnical properties of the mixture are very similar to those of lunar regolith.
Image: 7/7, Credit:

DLR/ESA

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More than five decades after the end of the Apollo programme, the world's eyes are once again turning to Earth's natural satellite. NASA's Artemis programme aims to land humans on the Moon for the first time since 1972. After Artemis I successfully orbited the Moon with the uncrewed Orion spacecraft in 2022, Artemis II is scheduled for 2026 and will carry astronauts on a ten-day lunar-orbit mission. Artemis III will then attempt a surface landing, during which an astronaut crew will explore the Moon's south pole for the very first time.

At the LUNA facility on DLR's Cologne site, lunar missions can be rehearsed and trained for under realistic conditions. The 700-square-metre hall can also be used for research and technology development. The floor of the hall is covered with a specially prepared basalt dust which simulates lunar regolith. Boulders, hills and craters mimic the Moon's surface and provide an ideal training ground for astronauts, landers and rovers. A Sun simulator recreates the extreme light conditions on the Moon, while the experimental FLEXhab space cabin provides a test environment for living and working during a lunar mission.

DLR's contributions to lunar missions

Artemis Pro­gramme

It has been almost 50 years since astronauts last set foot on the Moon (Apollo 17, December 1972). That is set to change before the end of this decade with NASA's Artemis programme planning to once again land humans on Earth's natural satellite. This time, the mission will also include the first woman to travel to the Moon. With Artemis the next 'big step for humankind' is underway. This first crewed mission to Mars will be flown by both female and male astronauts.

The LUNA Moon facility

Welcome to the Moon on Earth! The LUNA hall at DLR's Cologne site was officially opened on 25 September 2024. The facility – the only one of its kind in the world – enables preparations for human and robotic missions to Earth's satellite in a realistic environment. LUNA is jointly operated by DLR and the European Space Agency (ESA). The facility is nine metres in height, spans approximately 700 square metres and has an attached technology centre that offers experts from research, industry and start-ups a platform to test and develop their technologies.

Background article

The Moon

After the Sun, the Moon is the most striking and important celestial body, not least due to the cultural history relating to it. Since time immemorial, the ‘monthly’ recurring phases of the Moon have served as a measure of the passing of the seasons and formed the basis for planning agricultural activities and observing the workings of nature.

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Multimedia

Animation: Flying over the three-dimensional Moon

Since June 2009, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been orbiting the Moon, using a wide-angle camera to digitally record its cratered surface. Using a total of 70,000 images, researchers at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have now created a digital 3D model of the Moon with unprecedented accuracy and completeness. The video shows virtual flights over the surface of Earth's satellite.

SOFIA discovers water on the Moon

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has provided the first direct and unambiguous evidence of water molecules on the Moon outside the permanent shadow at the lunar poles. “The amount of water discovered by SOFIA is roughly equivalent to the contents of a 300-millilitre can of drink, spread over the same surface area as a football pitch,” explains Alessandra Roy, SOFIA project scientist at the DLR Space Administration.

A couple with a notable size difference: the Earth and the Moon

This photomontage combines images of the Earth and the Moon, recorded in 1992 by the Galileo space probe. The diameters of the two celestial bodies are more-or-less shown to scale; in reality, however, the distance between the Earth and the Moon is about 30 times the diameter of the Earth.

Moon in near infrared

These four images of the Moon were created using infrared image data acquired in December 1992 during the flyby of the Earth-Moon system conducted by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. They were acquired with the Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS). The view is directed towards the Moon's North Pole; the coloured areas show the northern hemisphere of the Earth-facing side of the Moon. The spectral channels of the instrument ranged from visible light to near-infrared wavelengths (5.2 micrometres).

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Moon Dreams – 50 years after Apollo 11, the focus turns again to the Moon