ZHUKOVSKY. Aug 29 (Interfax) - The European Space Agency (ESA) has no immediate plans to develop its own spacecraft, but is taking an active part in the United States' Project Artemis, a Moon landing mission, ESA Director General Jan Woerner told Interfax.
"Personally, I tried to convince the Europeans to build a manned spacecraft, but so far I could not succeed. My idea was to develop the ATV, the Automated Transfer Vehicle, further to crew vehicle, and launching it by Arian-5, because Ariane-6 was originally designed to the Hermes crew vehicle," he said.
At the same time, Woerner said that although he could not persuade the ESA's member states of the need to design the agency's own spaceship, the ESA is currently actively participating in the development of the new U.S. Artemis crewed spaceflight program with the Orion crew module.
"If you look at the ESM, the European Service Module, it has solar panels and it is the heritage of the ATV, that means we are a part of the crew vehicle. This is a part of what is now called the Artemis of the Americans. And the European Service Module is its critical part. Without the ESM it will not fly," he said.
The Space Launch System (SLS), a super heavy-lift launch vehicle currently being developed by the U.S., is expected to send the Orion crew module to lunar orbit in the future. The Orion is scheduled to make its inaugural flight without a crew to the Moon and beyond as part of the Artemis 1 mission in 2020.
NASA declared a test of the Orion's launch abort system successful in July.
The Orion crew module is part of NASA's three-component lunar-exploration program using the SLS super heavy-lift launch vehicle and a future space station in lunar orbit, Gateway.