Is Europe creating its own moon? Here's all about the LUNA facility

Is it possible for scientists to recreate the moon on Earth? The answer to this question is being explored by the European Space Agency (ESA) and German Aerospace Centre who are checking the possibility of recreating the moon in their LUNA Analog Facility.

There are 900 tonnes of ground-up volcanic rock on the moon at this LUNA facility which is at the European Astronaut Centre near Cologne.

Scientists have planned to simulate the low-gravity environment of the moon using movable ceiling-mounted trolleys which follow the rover’s movements or a suspended astronaut.

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Speaking about the facility in the press briefing, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst said that it will offer “most aspects that we will encounter on the moon”.

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“It’s the surface, it’s the lunar dust, the rocks, the lighting. We will work in spacesuits that limit our movement, limit our view," he said.

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The facility is known as LUNA (Lunar Analog) and it provides simulated regolith in a hall - which is spread over a 700-square-meter area.

The astronauts from ESA, NASA and other space agencies can practice living in conditions similar to that on the Moon in this area.

“We have about 900 tonnes of regolith simulating material in the facility to simulate the dusty environment and mobility on the surface,” said Juergen Schlutz, LUNA Facility Engineer & Moon Strategy Lead at European Space Agency, while speaking at the first press briefing of the facility.

Scientists have made 700 square meters of artificial regolith using the volcanic soils of the Eifel region in Germany, Italy’s Mount Etna and rocks from Norway.

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Astronauts Germany’s Matthias Maurer and France’s Thomas Pesquet also showed how the facility replicates the shine of the sun, which will obstruct the vision of astronauts when they come back to the moon.

They also showed how they would explore a crater on the moon and collect samples. In this facility, cables will be attached to the spacesuits of astronauts to pull them back as they walk and suspend them when they jump. The project has been in the prototype phase.

ESA has got three spots on the NASA-led Artemis programme which will happen in 2030. It is currently dependent on NASA and others to send its astronauts to space.

(With inputs from agencies)