Space station to orbit moon

A GROUNDBREAKING joint Russian-US mission, involving British astronomers, to build a space station circling the moon was announced yesterday.

The Russian space agency Roscosmos said it had reached an agreement with Nasa on the project, which could be the first stage in sending men to Mars.

Work on the Deep Space Gateway, a successor to the international Space Station, is expected to begin in the mid-2020s and to involve the European Space Agency, including experts from the University of Leicester.

The Deep Space Gateway is seen as a probable staging post for a mission to Mars, said Professor John Bridges of the University of Leicester.

Launching such a mission from space was ‘more feasible’ than from Earth and would use less fuel, he said, while astronauts could also use the lunar spaceport to carry out experiments such as analysing space debris and cosmic dust.