MoonLITE

Moon Lightweight Interior and Telecoms Experiment ( Moonlite ) is the name of a proposed British space mission to lunar exploration and development of technology for the future exploration of space. It would be financed by a consortium of British industrial companies in cooperation with the U.S. space agency NASA. The spacecraft should be launched in 2014. The concept of mission emerged in a study by the University of Particle Physics and Astronomy for the Science and Technology Facilities Council in 2006.

The spacecraft should have a mass of about 846 kg have and engage in a lunar orbit. From there, four penetrators should be brought to the lunar surface, each with 36 kg mass: one each at the two lunar poles, one facing away from the Earth side of the moon and a close one Apollo landing site. The penetrators should hit at a speed of 300 m / s. The mission was planned for a period of one year.

In December 2008, the British National Space Centre (now UK Space Agency) transferred the project from the planning to the study phase, for financial reasons, but it was laid in September 2009 on ice.