The European Space Agency (ESA) is confident that a German astronaut will be selected to fly to the moon on one of two lunar missions that NASA will mount under its Artemis programme.
A German astronaut is slated for either the Artemis 4 or Artemis 5 mission, ESA said on Friday. However, the decision has not yet been finalized.
It is also still not determined which of the two German candidates, Matthias Maurer and Alexander Gerst, will blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"We are convinced that a German astronaut will soon make it to the moon," Maurer told dpa this week.
Exploration of the moon is still in its infancy, Gerst added. "We plan to conduct long-term research on the moon, so there will be numerous other opportunities for international astronauts in the coming years."
On Tuesday, the US space agency announced that Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano will participate as the European astronaut on the next mission, Artemis 3, scheduled for 2027.
However, the mission will not fly to the moon but will remain in Earth orbit where it will perform docking manoeuvres with lunar landers.
On the sidelines of the International Aerospace Exhibition (ILA) currently taking place in Berlin, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said he would be the one to decide which astronaut would participate in the two lunar flights.
ESA is currently engaged in very productive discussions with NASA about those missions, he added.
Experience counts
Previously, a statement by Maurer had given the impression that he and Gerst would fly to the moon on two consecutive missions. ESA later refuted this in a press release.
There have been repeated delays in the Artemis programme in the past. However, nothing has changed recently regarding plans for missions 4 and 5, according to Aschbacher.
Responsibility for the missions lies with NASA, with ESA providing support in the form of components, he said.
Both Gerst and Maurer are experienced astronauts. Gerst flew to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2014 and 2018, and Maurer in 2021.
