Turkey eyes on Moon

 

Earlier this year, president of Turkey announced that Turkey would make a hard landing on the Moon by the year 2023.

 

On Tuesday, 16 June, 2021, Head of Turkish Space Agency (TUA), Serdar Huseyin Yildirim talking at the Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) in St Petersburg, Russia, discussed full details of the country's space program.

 

Yildirim said that they work with Russia in many sectors, also on the spaceport, on rocket engines and also discussed the possibility of Russia providing assistance in the construction of their spaceport. He added that Russia have expert in space technology.

Speaking on the sidelines of the ongoing GLEX, Yaldirim said that the rocket that launches the moon rover will be domestically built, using a hybrid engine that is currently being developed in Turkey.  He further said that a prototype of the rocket will fly to the moon in late 2023, if everything going according to plan.

 

Head of the Turkish Space Agency told that they intend to use their own engine to reach the moon, but for starting phase, their spacecraft will be brought to low Earth orbit with an international collaboration.

 

Turkish media reported that the 2023 mission will make a rough landing on the moon, which will help Turkish engineers to gather data for the soft landing in the end of this decade.  Turkish Space Agency said that in their future plan they will send their people to the International Space Station to conduct scientific experiments.

 

In February 2021, National Space Program of Turkey published that they also expects the establishment of a local Turkish spaceport and the development of a domestic regional positioning and timing satellite system.

 

Back in 2018, Turkey launched its space agency, at that time this was criticized as it took place amid an economic crisis, while on the opposite side supporters, claim the space program can motivate their engineers’ and scientists to stay in the country instead of seeking opportunities abroad.

 

This initiative of the space program of Turkey will allow to join a special member of those countries capable of pulling off complex space exploration projects on their own. Turkish Space Agency’s official said that the country’s space agency was working on more than 25 separate projects, and that it has held talks with about 20 countries on space cooperation, including Pakistan, China, Russia, Japan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, India and Azerbaijan.