Thales Alenia Space Italia and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) have signed a contract to start activities on a lunar habitation module called the Multi-Purpose Habitat (MPH). The project has already passed NASA's Element Initiation Review, which acknowledged the crucial functionalities of the Italian MPH module within the Artemis program's lunar surface architecture.
The next challenge will be to complete the Mission Concept Review (MCR), which is expected to be in the first quarter of 2024 and represents a key milestone to authorize the continuation of the next phases of the project and the development of the critical technology.
Indeed, life-support solutions demand cutting-edge technologies in inhospitable environments like the moon, even for short-to-medium durations. In this initial phase, Thales Alenia Space will have to form an industrial consortium of large, small, and medium-sized companies from the national supply chain, to advance the program to its implementation phase.
It will be fundamentally important to deliver a secure, comfortable, and multifunctional habitation module for astronauts, able to interface with other systems and components in the Artemis architecture.
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