LEO (spacecraft)
LEO ( Lunar Exploration Orbiter ) is the name of the German Aerospace Center (DLR ) planned unmanned research mission to the moon with purely German brands, which was originally supposed to start in 2012. Due to funding problems, the mission, however, is currently suspended. The project was launched in February 2007, some German parliamentarians and in August 2007 at the European Planetary Science Congress.
LEO would be the first independent German moon mission Smart-1 and after the second European mission to the Moon.
Mission planning
LEO should consist of two satellites. The main probe should weigh approximately 500 kg and will be accompanied by a sub-satellites with a weight of about 150 kg. Both should circle the moon at low altitude of 50 km for four years.
As the first mission ever LEO should enable the fabrication of three-dimensional, colored map of the entire lunar surface. The envisaged for the recordings HRSC camera should be similar to that which was in 2003 aboard the Mars probe Mars Express in operation. This camera was developed by DLR and built by EADS Astrium. Other planned measurements were related to the magnetic and gravity field of the moon and its shallow subsurface, which should be explored in up to several hundred meters depth by means of microwave radar. Also, a search for signs of water was provided.
Partners should be the German company EADS Astrium and OHB- System.
Cancellation
The cost of the project was estimated at about 350 million euros, spread over about five years. Included here were the design, construction, launch and operation of a lunar orbiter. Responsible for the funding was no longer as before, the Ministry of Research, but the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology Michael Glos (CSU ).
In July 2008, the project was canceled. Although the German government increased under the Cabinet Merkel I in the 2009 budget, the space budget, but the extra money was flowing in a robotics center at DLR Oberpfaffenhofen. In the course of fiscal consolidation no funds were provided for LEO.
In a Declaration, facing numerous renowned planetary scientists, such as Gerhard Neukum, Ralf Jaumann and Tilman Spohn, against the deferral. It was pointed out that numerous leading scientific and yet in the trip to the moon relatively inexperienced countries such as Japan, China or India could win a einzuholenden no longer ahead of the knowledge in Germany and all of Europe.