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Our mission? A team from Oberpfaffenhofen – consisting of video engineers Heike and Ilinca and network engineer Uwe – spent a week in Cologne to set up the perfect technology in the Luna Hall and optimise the lunar simulation for future astronaut experiments and training sessions.

Over the last few weeks, the main hall of LUNA has been transformed into a real lunar surface. The industrial building has become a dark, dusty environment that can only be entered with protective equipment similar to astronaut suits.

Lava tubes as subsurface shelters against micrometeorites or habitats with nearly constant temperatures will become an important exploration target. Additionally, they are of scientific relevance as they could host ice deposits and provide access to the underlying bedrock.

LUNA lay silent for almost 4 days – no trucks delivering regolith simulant, no interior works, no rover tests – just some boxes and sensors in a triangular configuration, and lots of cables. What was going on?

ollowing successful outdoor tests in the car park next to the Microgravity User Support Centre (MUSC), the two HiverR rovers have made their first cautious drive-out inside LUNA.

The rovers – developed by NEUROSPACE GmbH (Berlin) – are based on a CubeSat design, have an overall size of 45x35x30cm3 and

For two days, researchers from the Chair of Radio Frequency and Photonics Engineering at TU Dresden performed ground-penetrating radar (GPR) measurements in the LUNA hall. The group is involved in GPR experiments e.g. on NASA’s Mars rover Perserverance and the rover of the upcoming ESA ExoMars mission (scheduled launch in

The Space Pavilion at the ILA in Berlin gave the Moon much space, not only in the exhibition but also in the stage programme. LUNA had a prominent place here and was presented by several members of the project team to the specialist audience and the very interested general public.

The sun has been rising in LUNA since 3 June. So far, it is only a relatively primitive installation: a powerful film spotlight on a tripod has been rented for the coming months before the much more complex sun simulator is designed and constructed and can be installed. At the

A working group from the German Federal Association of Students in Space Flight (BVSR) spent several days at a conference in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. The focus was on developing a rover concept, which will then be tested at the LUNA analogue facility and made available for university research.

For a realistic simulation of astronautical activities on the lunar surface, it is important to have astronaut suits that correspond as closely as possible to the real spacesuits that will be used in the future