President’s Words
Several webinars have been organized dealing with all the WGs and activities of the Association. The average number of participants were several thousands, adding value to all people interested in the Moon Exploration and Settlement. At the present, a new Working Group about Lunar Commerce and Economics has been created.
The Phase 1 of the Participating for Emerging Space Countries (PESC) program is completed with the issue of Roadmaps to involve in the Moon Village the following countries: Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Kenya, Mongolia, Nepal, Thailand, Mexico, Colombia, Chile. The phase 2 will start in 2021.
The 1st Global online Moon Village Workshop & Symposium was held on 9 and 10 November 2020 and it was attended by more than 700 people from 67 countries. This workshop was a turning point since MVA received a strong support from 7 space agencies that participated in the Key note speeches. Many innovative presentations were made, from all the world, and are available on the MVA website.
On December 14-16, the MVA Architecture Working Group workshop took place. The workshop discussed in detail the reference Moon Village architecture in 2045, this is important in order to understand interdependency of the relevant building blocks under development.
In order to reduce the risk of accident and increase international cooperation for the future lunar missions, MVA has defined the Best Practices for Sustainable Lunar Activities, however, to engage the world community the Global Expert Group on Sustainable Lunar Activities (GEGSLA) has been created. This group will involve major stakeholders like space agencies/governments, industry, academia, international organizations and the public. The goal of GEGSLA is to define a common level playing field for sustainable lunar activities as well as define, in detail, critical issues like definition of safety zone, lunar debris mitigation guidelines, interoperability, etc.
Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) have been signed with the Ukraine and the Egyptian Space Agencies.Many new national coordinators have been appointed, especially in Africa. The Global Network is growing.
The year that is passing, has been very challenging for us all, but we have achieved a lot as you can see from this Newsletter, thanks to your support.
I wish you and your family Happy Holidays with the hope that 2021 will bring us back physically together!
Ad Luna
Giuseppe Reibaldi
President, Moon Village Association
December, 2020
Click here to see the rest of the Moon Village Association August – December 2020 Newsletter.