Ten things you did not know about the Moon: 9. Resources

What do you know about the Moon? This set of infographics illustrates the most frequently asked questions and facts about Earth’s natural satellite.

ESA is teaming up with international partners to explore the Moon as a destination for both robotic missions and human explorers.

Orion, the NASA spacecraft, will bring humans farther than they have ever been before relying on the European Service Module to return humans to the Moon and take advantage of the new technology for human space transportation. ESA is providing service modules that will provide propulsion, life support, power, air and water, and control the temperature in the crew module.

Luna-Resurs is a partnership with the Russian agency Roscosmos that will carry European technology to land precisely and safely on the Moon and to drill into the surface to extract and analyse samples of the lunar terrain.

The Agency is looking at how we could extract and process local resources into useful products and services, such as drinkable water or breathable oxygen on the Moon.

The Heracles mission could liftoff in 2026 to allow us to gain knowledge on human-robotic interaction while landing a spacecraft on the Moon to collect samples with a rover operated from an orbiting lunar gateway and send the samples back to Earth.