As of: March 13, 2024, 4:11 p.m
By: Alexandra Heidsiek
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Markus Söder wants to go to the moon © Sven Hoppe/Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa (montage)
From Munich to the moon: A Bavarian control center seems likely.
Esa wants to monitor its lunar missions from there.
Munich - Wishes come true: This Wednesday (March 13th), Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) will meet with representatives of the European Space Agency (Esa) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
The reason for the meeting is the signing of a declaration of intent that provides for the construction of a control center for lunar missions near Munich.
The lunar control center in Bavaria is to become part of the DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen
A year and a half ago, Söder said: “We definitely want to have the lunar control center,” and now this dream seems within reach.
The center is a station on Earth from which lunar missions can be observed.
It is to be connected to the existing DLR infrastructure in Oberpfaffenhofen.
There is already a control center for the international space station ISS there.
With the Artemis program, the US space agency NASA would like to soon send people to the moon again.
To do this, she sought out international partners, including Esa.
They now hope that a European astronaut can fly to the moon for the first time.
The last human moon landing was over 50 years ago.
ESA astronauts also want to fly to Mars soon
Part of Esa's task is also to build a new space station that orbits the moon: the Lunar Gateway.
It will not only serve as a cosmic research station, but also as a kind of “transfer station”.
From there the astronauts should be able to travel on: to the moon – and soon to Mars.
This requires the lunar control center in Oberpfaffenhofen.
Markus Söder is making this foray into space cost a lot: the Bavarian Ministry of Economics has spent around 245 million euros on space research in the last six years, and a total of 700 million euros were made available for the “Bavaria One” program.
In addition to the DLR, the biggest beneficiaries include the Technical University of Munich, which was able to expand its chair for space technology.
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