지질연, ‘우주 강소국’ 룩셈부르크와 우주 자원 개발 나선다
한국이 유럽의 우주 강소국 룩셈부르크와 함께 우주 자원 활용기술을 개발한다. 공동연구와 인적교류를 통해 달 자원 개발의 주도권을 확보하겠다는 전략이다. 한국지질자원연구원(지질연)은 룩셈부르크 과학기술연구소(LIST·Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology)와 우주 자원 개발 분야의 상호협력연구를 위한 업무협약을 맺었다고 지난 20일 밝혔다. 이번 업무협약으로 ESRIC와 달 자원 활용연구의 기술적 연계성을 강화해 달 탐사 주도권을 확보할 수 있을 것으로 기대한다. 또 기존 NASA와의 공동연구에 이어 룩셈부르크 등 우주 강국과의 연구 협력으로 우주 자원 기술의 ‘투 트랙’ 전략을 적용하고, 기술 허브 역할을 주도한다는 계획이다.
출처: 지질연, ‘우주 강소국’ 룩셈부르크와 우주 자원 개발 나선다 – 조선비즈 (chosun.com)
KIGAM이 개발하면 ESRIC이 추출하는 우주자원개발시대 열린다! | 보도자료 | 연구원소식 | 알림마당 : KIGAM 한국지질자원연구원
The fifth edition of Space Resources Week is taking place between 19 and 21 April 2023 as a 3-day hybrid conference connecting thought leaders from space agencies, research institutes, start-ups, and industry (both terrestrial and space).
The event organised by the European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC) together with the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA), European Space Agency (ESA), and the Luxembourg Institute of Science & Technology (LIST), took to the stage more than 70 speakers from key institutions in front of an audience of more than 1350 people (450 on-site and 900 online). Amongst the speakers were Franz Fayot, Luxembourg Minister of the Economy, and German Astronaut and Materials Scientist, Matthias Maurer, as well as key representatives from ESA, NASA and KIGAM.
“With only two years since the creation of ESRIC, we are happy to see the community growing and contributing to a strong, international space resources ecosystem”, says Kathryn Hadler, Director of ESRIC.
The multidisciplinary community attending the Space Resources Week 2023 was able to see some of the latest technologies displayed, such as the 1:1 scale of the lander developed in the ESA Argonaut project.
The audience further had the opportunity to discover the work of partner organisations, companies and agencies, such as OffWorld, Polimak, DoraHacks, Ispace, the UK Space Agency, Robominers, EURO2MOON and the University of Luxembourg’s SNT department, as well as an art exhibition courtesy to the Moon Gallery foundation.
Collaboration between ESRIC and KIGAM
Building on the exchanges during Luxembourg’s economic mission to Korea end of 2022, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between ESRIC − powered by LSA, ESA and hosted at the LIST − and the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) during the conference.
“We are delighted to see this partnership between Luxembourg and Korea being taken to the next level and establish a stronger collaboration between the two national institutes”, says Luxembourg Minister of the Economy, Franz Fayot.
ESA-ESRIC Space Resources Challenge
Following the success of the first Space Resources Challenge held in the Netherland and in Luxembourg between November 2021 and September 2022, the five finalist teams presented their lessons learnt on the first day of the event.
The winners of the €200.000 development contract with ESA, and €300.000 contract with ESRIC allocated in the framework of the competition, a consortium between FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik and Team Glimpse which was led by ETH Zürich and the University of Zurich have also been announced at this occasion.
“ESA is committed to drive innovation in lunar resource extraction and the ESA-ESRIC Space Resources Challenge is one of the initiatives that aims to generate new ideas and technologies from the community”, says Melchiorre Conti, Space Resources Engineer ESA
Commercialization activities
During the second day of the conference, as part of the commercialization session, a wide range of international start-ups and ventures will share their experience. Amongst them, the five early-stage ventures that are currently being pre-incubated in the ESRIC Start-up Support Programme, the first world-wide programme entirely dedicated to space resources.
“With this annual event, ESRIC is contributing to the market consolidation of space resources, with new ventures shaping the future of commercial activities, aiming to make the Lunar Economy a reality”, states Lari Cujko, ESRIC Start-up Support Programme Lead.
Press release by the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA)
Source: https://meco.gouvernement.lu/fr/actualites.gouvernement%2Ben%2Bactualites%2Btoutes_actualites%2Bcommuniques%2B2023%2B04-avril%2B20-space-resources-week.html
