Unmanned Flight To Be Launched By 2013

Germany is looking towards the moon again, and not just from the ground.

The German Aerospace Centre (DLR) announced Friday its goal is to launch an unmanned flight to the earth's satellite by 2013.

"Why shouldn't we do it alone?" asked Walter Doellinger, director of the Centre. "We have the technology, we have the know-how, and we have the experience with robots," reported The Times.

As outlined to scientists at a meeting last week, Germany will send a satellite with a high-resolution camera to orbit the Moon for four years to prepare the first detailed lunar map. When completed, a rocket will land a robot soil-sampler.

Doellinger added, "The probe will examine the moon's surface and provide indications of significant geological formations that could later be of interest for drilling."

German scientists are recognized as leaders in the fields of outer space measurement, photographic and radar technology, including the high-resolution cameras on board the European Space Agency craft Mars Express.

While the German orbiter will be launched by 2013, the soil sampler should be on the Moon before 2020. The US manned space program may also benefit from the Moon atlas if NASA moves ahead with its plans to establish a lunar base.

The Times reports  there have been clear signals from the German government, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel -- who is also a physicist -- that it is willing to initially fund the five-year Lunar Exploration Orbiter project.

It is a sign of the new German self-confidence, one that will be sure to attract controversy.

Germany's European partners have viewed attempts to develop a space program outside established institutions like the European Space Agency (ESA) with suspicion, however.

It was under the Nazis that German scientists made important breakthroughs towards space travel in October 1942, by launching an A4 rocket 62 miles into space.

The rocket design, renamed the V2, was later used to bombard the South East of England and Antwerp in Belgium, killing thousands. The German scientist Wernher von Braun later helped America in the space race.

Completing a moon mission would catapult the country into the league of nations which can send spacecraft into orbit.

Details would be announced in early 2008. Current estimated costs are $390 million dollars over five years, in addition to the annual DLR budget of $924 million dollars.

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