A few days ago, Astrium GmbH announced that a European lunar lander and rover mission could be designed, built, launched and operated for six months on the lunar surface for 500 million euros ($650 million).

So far, the mission a received a two-year contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) that ends in mid-November, and now it struggles for 100 million euros for two more years of work to carry the project to preliminary design review. The decision will be made by ESA government ministers during a meeting scheduled Nov. 20-21 in Naples, Italy.

Spain has since taken an 11 percent stake in the preliminary work, including contracts on the critical landing phase to Barcelona Moon Team’s partner, GMV.

Indeed Barcelona Moon Team mission should be seen as a test bed for many technologies by a fraction of a tenth the cost of the ESA mission. Barcelona Moon Team will be attempting an equatorial landing instead of a polar landing, but it would be a major demonstration for the navigation and control systems of the European mission.

Barcelona Moon Team was presenting its mission to ESA in ESTEC in June 2012, and the team is open to some collaboration both in technology demonstration or transportation of a science payload: in Europe, space is expecting the outcome of the ministerial meeting in November.
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