**4. Going further, expanding earth to an earth-moon system**

### **4.1 Moon segment: in-orbit station and missions, surface research station**

The SpaceX Crew Dragon mission Inspiration4 [16], launched on 16th September 2021 and was sponsored by Entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, acting as mission commander with a crew of three astronauts (Prof./Pilot Sian Proctor, Medical Officer Halley Arceneaux, Mission Specialist Christopher Sembroski). Followed on the 30th of March 2022 by the Axiom sponsored fully civilian crew visiting the ISS for few days onboard Crew Dragon [17]. The SpaceX Starship is a multi-use Moon/Mars transport/settlement vehicle, with return capability. It is now in very fast pace development with early tests proving automatic attitude controls for lifting, landing and free-falling. On the 15th of May 2021, Starship Number 15 (SN15) proved the autonomous Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) capability of the spacecraft. The actual development is the stacking of SN20 above the Super Heavy Booster (**Figure 5**) to permit Earth escape velocity. One of the first use of the starship will be the space tourism *#dearMoon* project (dear [19]), sponsored by the Japanese Entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, with the aim at inspiring a broad range of artists by having them do a fly-by of the Moon by 2023. This will also bring SpaceX in the forefront of the Moon transport industry. In parallel, plans were for a first Martian crew by 2024 [18], but eventually are going to be delayed a few years until circumlunar flights of starship become a viable resource to SpaceX.

The Artemis program [20] is a Moon landing and settlement mission from the USA. It is aimed at using public-private partnership to access the Moon in the years ahead and eventually create a Moon's south pole settlement. In preparation, Artemis 2 is planned to be the first crewed mission to perform a flyby of the Moon. To reach to the Moon surface, but also as a relay to Mars, the Deep Space Gateway (**Figure 6**: [3]) also called the Lunar Gateway [21] is created as a relay station, and lunar inorbit space port. Canada, EU and Japan space agencies have formalized partnerships for the Lunar in-orbit station [21]. The *lunar Gateway* is also clearly defined as a relay station en-route to Mars. On 16th April 2021, NASA granted 2.9B USD to SpaceX to create the ARTEMIS lunar lander, from its Starship series of spacecraft.

**Figure 5.**

*Access to Space, Access to the Moon – Two Sides of the Same Coin? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105175*

#### **Figure 6.** *Government's missions timeline [3].*

With the successful lunar orbit injection of Chandrayaan-2 in 2019, the Indian government approved a follow-on mission, Chandrayaan-3, which is launching in 2023 [22], carrying both a lander and rover, with the same set of payloads as Chandrayaan-2, but without an orbiter (C-2 has already successfully inserted an orbiter). ISRO is also working with JAXA to conduct a feasibility study for a joint lunar exploration mission.

The PRC has now fully and officially, engaged into the race to create a Moon base. Weiren [23] announced that the PRC's '*next steps in [...] lunar exploration endeavour will be challenging and demanding as we aim to set up a scientific outpost on the moon's south pole. In the near future, we will also send our astronauts to land on the moon'.* The station will aim at an international cooperation, named the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). On 21st February 2021, Roscosmos confirmed that the administrative steps to join the ILRS are ready to be signed with the PRC [24]. Across the board, the targets are 2030 for robotic and short-term human presence. By 2036, ILRS settlement and long-term human presence are expected [25]. Prior to the Ukraine invasion, and the subsequent EU sanctions, both EU and Russia had explored the collaboration possibilities, by May 2022, the time of reviewing this text, there is a certain level of uncertainty about the EU positioning on that subject.1
