They are short daily tales created by an artist “hand” in all kinds of techniques. Drawing, painting, collage… surround the children with the magic of creativity, while music and spoken word relate the tale.

Barcelona Moon Team and the program organized for the coming weeks the subject “Ask for the Moon…” that will compel through the program’s webpage, all the children creations around space, Moon and the BMT adventure. Moreover, the program has a set of online drawing tools and video edition to create your own tale and share it afterwards with all your friends.

Visit the site (sorry just in Catalan) and share with us how do you imagine the trip to the Moon and the lunar trekking!

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Barcelona Moon Team col·labora amb Televisió de Catalunya per desenvolupar continguts per un dels seus programes infantils més coneguts, “Una mà de contes”. Aquest programa és una aposta molt original i popular entre els infants i les escoles de Catalunya i 14 països de tot el món on s’emet.

Consisteix en petits contes diaris on una “mà” (d’artista) els dóna forma gràfica en tot tipus de suport I tècnica. Dibuix, pintura, collage, ninots, envolten els infants amb la màgia d’una creació instantània davant dels seus ulls, mentre la música i la veu en off, acompanyen els moviments de la mà amb el relat del conte.

El Barcelona Moon Team i el programa han organitzat per a les properes setmanes el tema “Demana la Lluna…” que recollirà, a través de la web del programa, totes les creacions dels nens i dels professionals al voltant de l’espai, la Lluna i l’aventura del BMT. El programa, a més, disposa d’eines de dibuix i edició de música i video online per crear el propi conte i poder-lo compartir després amb tots els amics.

Animeu-vos i expliqueu-nos com us imagineu el viatge cap a la Lluna o la passejada lunar del rover!

The GLXP teams are not the only missions aiming to send robotic missions to the Moon though. There are at least two national missions scheduled along with the GLXP to get there with their rovers before 2015: one is Chinese, Chang’E-3, the other Russo-Indian, Chandrayan-2/ Luna Grunt. The competition rules establish that, if any governmental mission lands before a GLXP, the main prize will be reduced. They are then the 22nd (non registered) competitor.

The unfortunate Phobos-Grunt mission failure, launched in November, will cause a delay in the construction of the Russian lander for the Russo-Indian Chandrayan-2 / Luna Grunt mission. As a result the mission, planned for 2013, may have to be postponed by three years.

In December, China announced their goals for future, which included robotic missions to the moon with rovers and sample return mission within this decade, and even a manned mission by 2025. Chang’E-3 was also planned for 2013, although in their public announcement in December, Chinese officials extended the calendar up to 2016.

Are those missions impacting in the GLXP teams missions? Delays in space exploration are not good news, but for our teams, it is a $5M be/not be question. Not a frivolous one.

The visits consists in a two hours workshop in which the youngsters get some general ideas on the Moon, its origin, its recent exploration and the near future that will bring us back there. Barcelona Moon Team LUNNIK introduces to the students its predecessors in the Moon exploration: from the Russian Luna probes and the American Ranger and Surveyor missions, to the Apollos and the most recent missions from Europe, Japan, India, US or China.

After this introduction, the students learn about the reasons for exploring the Moon, and how will the team develop its mission. Following the description of the rover systems and their function, the students can enjoy driving a radio controlled prototype of the team’s lunar rover.

Barcelona Moon Team LUNNIK will continue its personal mission to bring to every Spanish scholar enthusiasm in science, technology, space and entrepreneur spirit. In the pictures attached the recent visit to the school Vila Olimpica in Barcelona.

These results are due to an important increase of annual budget that the Spanish Government provided ESA since year 2000, when it was 111million Euros with around 14% increase every year. Unfortunately the economic crisis in 2008 stalled that increase and the actual sovereign debt crisis in Europe doesn’t offer good perspectives in the Spanish domestic budget dedicated to space through the Defense Ministry either. In the next months we will see which the position of the new conservative government is, currently facing the 2012 Spanish budget.

This fact is important to the Spanish space industry because of the geo-return principle that rules the European space policy: the drop in the annual budget that Spain commits to ESA will be reflected in the contracts that the Spanish companies get in return, and this may slow down a very positive evolution of these companies.

In this situation, when public budgets get reduced, it is crucial to establish new strategies that may help bringing in the industry projects and contracts, not just depending on ESA geo-return policy.

The Barcelona Moon Team involvement in the GLXP is a good opportunity for the Spanish industry: it is a very attractive project to the public, eager for positive news about the future, and an awesome opportunity to get new capabilities for the industry. Getting to the Moon is not just a new RACE, it is a DRIVING project that will open new doors for the industry.

Besides the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, built by the American company Space X, a mission launch onboard the Indian PSLV and the Chinese Long March would be banned by ITAR regulations.

International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) is a set of United States government regulations that control the export and import of defense-related articles and services on the United States Munitions List (USML). This also includes technology pertaining to satellites and launch vehicles.

There is an open debate between the Department of State and the industries regulated by ITAR concerning how harmful the regulatory restrictions are for U.S. businesses. Companies argue that ITAR is a significant trade barrier that acts as a substantial negative subsidy, weakening U.S. industries’ ability to compete. They point to announcements such as TAS (Thales Alenia Space) promoting their “ITAR-free” telecommunication satellites. Actually there is a more than three year open U.S. State Department investigation on this particular case.

Even if future sees a more open regulation on ITAR, the timeframe of the GLXP obliges the Barcelona Moon Team to work on an ITAR-free mission if the team would chose to launch either on an Indian or a Chinese LV.

As stated in the last post, the BMT is considering the European new small launcher VEGA as one of the feasible options to launch with. Another of the possibilities is the Dnepr launch vehicle.

The Dnepr is a ICBM converted to launch artificial satellites into orbit. It is operated by the launch service provider ISC Kosmotras. The Dnepr can be launched from Baikonur or Yasny. The baseline version can lift 3,600 kg into a 300 km low earth orbit at an inclination of 50.6°, or 2,300 kg to a 300 km sun-synchronous orbit at an inclination of 98.0°. However due to operational reasons the inclination achieved from Yasny it is not 50.6º but 65º.

The Dnepr can deploy a larger main payload and a secondary payload of mini satellites and CubeSats. The use of a Space Tug would enable a trans lunar injection orbit, although it would reduce the mass and volume of the payload in the fairing. This would be an optimal scenario for the BMT mission. However this tug is not developed and this development might not fit into the team schedule.

Barcelona Moon Team has started conversations with Kosmotras to achieve an agreement for a dedicated launch to bring the team’s payload of around 2.2Tn into a circular orbit of 550km altitude. Once released in LEO the team’s S/C would stay some days in orbit before accelerating into a lunar transfer orbit as for the first part of its mission.

VEGA is the new European small launcher that will start operations during this early 2012 from Courou, in the French Guyana. It is being developed for Arianespace jointly by the Italian Space Agency and the European Space Agency. Vega is a single-body launcher (no strap-on boosters) with three solid rocket stages, the P80 first stage, the Zefiro 23 second stage, the Zefiro 9 third stage, and a liquid rocket upper module called AVUM.

VEGA is designed to launch small payloads to complement the heavy Ariane 5 and medium Soyuz Rocket systems: its reference mission is a polar orbit bringing a spacecraft of 1,500 kilograms to an altitude of 700 kilometers. The preferred option for the team’s mission would be an elliptical orbit with the highest possible apogee and a not too low perigee that would allow some days of operations in LEO without problems with the atmosphere drag. This option is also possible with the VEGA LV.

Before starting commercial operations VEGA has a total of five VERTA missions (Vega Research and Technology Accompaniment – Programme), with two launches a year planned for the new programme, and construction of infrastructure including mission control and communications networks is currently underway.

A VERTA flight would be a good opportunity for the team, even though all the VERTA flights are preliminary assigned including launches for the new ESA’s IXV (Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle) to test and qualify new critical technologies for future re-entry vehicles. The team will continue exploring this possibility that would make possible a full European mission to the Moon.

The launch is one of the critical points on the team’s plan and intensive efforts are being made to have a final selected launcher in the next weeks. The phase A studies currently under process consider other two possibilities as an alternative to this option.

The CTAE is a non-profit private foundation set up in 2005 by Academia, Government and Industry in the region of Catalonia (Spain) aiming to promote innovation and enhance industrial competitiveness.

CTAE is proud member of the Technology Centres network of Generalitat de Catalunya. The main activity of CTAE is the research and development of aerospace technologies. CTAE offers Research, Development and Innovation (R+D+i) services to companies, helping transform concept into product, with the support of public administration and the competences of universities and research centres, and financing projects with a mixed formula of public-private funding.

Main CTAE research areas are: Navigation and Communications; Robotics and Advanced Automation; Safety Critical Software and Control.

After CTAE’s former director, Juan de Dalmau, one of the firsts team members, returned to ESA – ESTE, the Centre reoriented its strategy on the hand of its current director, Jordi Angusto, and focal point for the Barcelona Moon Team project. Jordi (56) graduated from the University of Barcelona in Economics. Very soon, he collaborated with Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona as Professor in Economics Theory. In 1988 he was appointed General Director of Barcelona Tecnologia, a technological center promoted by Barcelona City Hall with several public and prívate stakeholders such as Universitat de Barcelona, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Telefonica, Dragados and Banca Catalana. In 2001, Jordi took the head of DSD, a spin-off of Barcelona Tecnologia that was finally transferred to the French leader in Technological Consulting services Altran.In 2006 Jordi was appointed President of the Executive Committee fo DeltaBCN, the Aerospace and Mobility Park in Viladecans until September 2010 that he took up duty as new General Director of CTAE.

The Chair is directed by Antonio Benito Martinez, head of the Department of Systems Engineering, Automation and Industrial Informatics (ESAII) and is co-directed by the UPC Emeritus Professor Josep Amat, and Xavier Claramunt and Marc Zaballa as part of Galactic Suite.

The Chair will have an initial term of three years and develop a general program of activities organized around lines of science and engineering and robotics systems to support the team Barcelona Moon Team, among other projects.

The Chair will also develop outreach work and organize joint activities related to the promotion of research and technological development, such as calls for scientists, engineers and students from around the world to conduct experiments and robots that will be chosen and get a flight opportunity at the Barcelona Moon Team inititative.

The Chair was signed by Xavier Claramunt, president of Galactic Suite and Barcelona Moon Team leader, and Antoni Giró, rector of the UPC: “The UPC could not stay away from participation in this ambitious project which should allow the development of new technology and space systems as background to the knowledge transfer, research and innovation, especially if we consider that aerospace is one of the leading lines of the research activity of the UPC”.

Thales Alenia Space España is a Spanish company devoted to the development of space systems and equipment for telecommunications, Earth observation, scientific research, exploration of the universe, navigation and space vehicles and infrastructure for commercial and institutional programs both civilian and military.

The company is a global leader in telecommunication systems and repeaters and Telemetry, Tracking and Command (TTC) data communications equipment in S-band for satellites and spacecraft, with a share of 50% of the world accessible market.

Thales Alenia Space España has been working for over 20 years in scientific and Earth observation programmes, providing communications equipment and data processing and mechanism control units for space agencies around the world. It also develops RF and optical sensors for formation flying with application in future scientific and exploration missions.

TASE’s focal point in the team is Angel Alvaro Sanchez is R&D Manager. With over 15 years experience in the space sector, has participated as a designer and head of digital equipment department in a variety of satellites and missions, among which stand the probes Rosetta, Mars Express and Venus Express. Responsible of operations and production for 3 years, now applies the knowledge gained to develop new equipment and systems for future scientific and communication satellites. Angel is Telecomunication Engineer, married, with two children, and he is fond of teaching about the use of space to serve the people.

EADS Casa Espacio is a company part of Astrium. Located in Madrid, it is composed of more than 400 qualified workers dedicated for more than 30 years to Space Systems, including satellites, platforms, payloads and launchers. The Company has special strength in System Engineering tasks and in Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV) activities for the different payloads and platforms. It is also a reference point for thermal control, mechanisms and structure subsystems design and for antennas design and manufacturing. It has been Prime Contractor of several projects (Minisat, PAZ, INGENIO, SMOS and Spainsat payloads among others) having as customers ESA, HISPASAT, Arianespace, INTA and NASA and standing out for the quality of the results provided.

EADS CASA Espacio’s focal point at Barcelona Moon Team is Alfonso Martínez. Alfonso is the Director of Systems at EADS CASA Espacio. He is Telecommunication Engineer by the Polytechnic University of Madrid, and has worked in different companies, developing most of his career at CASA where he has been over 25 years and where he has participated and led numerous programs for space systems.