News

The LUNA Team has been honored with the ESA Team Excellence Award, recognizing the outstanding collaboration and dedication that made Europe’s unique lunar analog facility a reality.

After a few unusually hot days near the end of May, the first big thunderstorm of the summer hit Cologne and surroundings in the evening of May, 29th. The onset of high winds related to this storm stands out prominently in the seismic data from LUNA as a sudden increase

In late February 2026, the LUNA Analog Facility became the setting for a valuable milestone in a lunar exploration technology: the demonstration test of the PHOENIX (Portable Handheld cOmbinEd RamaN-LIBS-XRF) spectrometer. Developed through a collaboration between the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA, ES), the University of Leicester (UK), the

If we want to send humans into space, we must provide and maintain breathable air. The system that performs this function in a spacecraft is called the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS). The Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed and tested a photobioreactor system that will add

The Norwegian aerospace company Nåva Space has successfully completed a field test campaign of its non-pressurized EVA suit development platform at the LUNA analogue facility in Cologne. The campaign marks an important step in the development of future European extravehicular activity (EVA) suit systems.

How reliably does communication work under moon-like conditions?
This central question was at the heart of a three-day test campaign at the LUNA analog facility in Cologne. For the first time, a joint ESA and DLR team tested the complete communication chain between the LUNA test site, the local

NASA has announced the two scientific instruments that astronauts will deploy and operate near the lunar South Pole during the second crewed lunar landing of the Artemis programme, Artemis IV, on December 4th, 2025. One of these instruments is the South Pole Seismic Station (SPSS), which consists of a seismometer

The LUNA Analog Facility team conducted a series of mission simulations called SAIL (Solar Array Installation in LUNA), which focused on the installation of a solar array under conditions similar to those found at the lunar south pole. The campaign provided an excellent opportunity to investigate both the technical and

From 25-28 November 2025, an extensive pre-test for the photobioreactor campaign took place in the LUNA hall. It was the first activity in LUNA to successfully utilise the new Monitoring and Control System for LUNA (MCS-L). The experimenters worked on site in the FLEXHab space habitat. The campaign team was

The ATAPP team (All Terrain Autonomous Planetary Prospector) consisting of students from various German universities and colleges, tested the limits of a rover in the LUNA hall. ATAPP is part of the VaMEx initiative which aims to explore the Valles Marineris on Mars.