International Lunar Exploration Working Group
International Lunar Exploration Working Group is a public forum sponsored by the world's space agencies to support "international cooperation towards a world strategy for the exploration and utilization of the Moon - our natural satellite".
ILEWG was founded by several space agencies: ASA, ASI, BNSC, CNES, DARA, ESA, ISAS,
NASA, NASDA, RSA.
Operations and conferences
ILEWG has been organising since 1994 the ICEUM International Conferences on Exploration & Utilisation of the Moon with published proceedings, and where community declarations have been prepared and endorsed by community participants. ILEWG has co-organised and co-sponsored lunar sessions at EGU, COSPAR, EPSC.The 8th gathering was held in July 23–27, 2006, in Beijing, China, and agreed the new Lunar Beijing Declaration.
Members
ILEWG Executive Director: Prof. Bernard FoingILEWG Vice-presidents: Prof. Tai Sik Lee, Prof. Jacques Blamont, Dr. Simonetta di Pippo, Dr Robert Richards
ILEWG Past-Presidents : Dr. Michael Wargo, Prof. Wu Ji, Prof. Narendra Bhandari, Prof Carle Pieters, Prof Mike Duke, Prof Bernard Foing, Acad. Erik Galimov, Dr Hitoshi Mizutani
Roadmap
The roadmap or timeline envisaged includes a 15-year period of robotic operations before crewed missions. Robots would pilot in-situ resource utilisation and construct habitation for later crew.EuroMoonMars
As part of research efforts towards the colonization of Moon and eventually the colonization of Mars, ILEWG founded the EuroMoonMars initiative, which comprises field campaigns in Moon-Mars analogue environments.The EuroMoonMars field campaigns have been organised in specific locations of technical, scientific and exploration interest. The campaigns started with EuroGeoMars2009 with ILEWG, ESA ESTEC, NASA Ames, VU Amsterdam and GWU.
EMMIHS Campaigns
Currently, ILEWG is collaborating with the International Moonbase Alliance and the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation on a series of EuroMoonMars, IMA and HI-SEAS campaigns, at the HI-SEAS analogue facilities in Hawaii.The Hawaii - Space Exploration Analog and Simulation habitat is located at 8,200’ in elevation and IMA's founder, Henk Rogers, is its owner. As of 2018, IMA, an organization dedicated to building sustainable settlements on the Moon, has been organising regular simulated missions to the Moon, Mars or other planetary bodies at HI-SEAS. Dr. Michaela Musilova is the Director of HI-SEAS and she also takes part in missions as a Crew Commander, Flights Director or CAPCOM.
The EuroMoonMars campaigns consist of research activities for data analysis, instruments tests and development, field tests in Moon-Mars analogues, pilot projects, training and hands-on workshops and outreach activities.
EMM IgLuna 2019 Campaign
IgLuna is the first ESA Lab inter-University demonstrator project, and is hosted by the Swiss Space Centre with the vision to create an analogue habitat inside lunar ice caps. The campaigns were held from 17–30 June 2019 and involved 18 student teams from 9 countries across Europe. The students developed modular demonstrators and tested them during a field test conducted inside the moon-like extreme environment of the Glacier Palace inside the Matterhorn glacier.| Year | Campaign | Notes |
| 2009 | EuroMoonMars-Eifel | Collaboration between ILEWG, ESA ESTEC, VU Amsterdam, Austrian Space Forum OEWF, GWU, Ecole de l’Air |
| 2010 | EuroMoonMars-DOMMEX | Collaboration between ILEWG, ESA ESTEC, NASA Ames, VU Amsterdam, GWU, Ecole de l’Air, FloridaTec, UCL Louvain |
| 2010 | EuroMoonMars SALM | La Réunion Island |
| 2011 | EuroMoonMars2011 | First EMM-MDRS mission |
| 2012 | EuroMoonMars2012 | Crew: Stoker, Battler, v’t Houd, Bruneau, Cross, Maivald, Svendsen, Oltheten, Nebergall, Orgel Support: Foing, Ehrenfreund, Elsaesser, Rammos, Rodrigues, Direito, Roling |
| 2017 | LunAres | Crew: PMAS SGAC Support @ESTEC/Mission control: Foing, Lillo, Authier, Blanc et al. |
| 2018 | EMM-Iceland scouting campaign | Crew: Foing, Heemskerk, Sitnikova et al. Support: 4th Planet Logistics |
| 2018 | EMMIHS-0 | Crew: Rogers H&A, Foing, Wilhite, Machida Support: BluePlanet: Ponthieux, Cox et al. |
| 2019 | EMMIHS-I | Crew: Musilova, Sirikan, Mulder, Weert, Burstein, Pothier Support: BluePlanet: Foing, Ponthieux, Cox, Rogers |
| 2019 | EMM-IgLuna campaign | IgLuna SSC support: Benavides, EuroMoonMars VUA/ILEWG Crew: de Winter, Heemskerk, Albers, Clement, Bois, Daeter, Vaessen, Glukhova, Sitnikova, Dimova, Wanske, van der Sanden, Foing Support: Kruijver, Dingemans, Beentjes, Korthouwer, Moritz, Grosjean et al. |
| 2019 | EMMIHS-II | Crew: Musilova, Kerber, Castro, Wanske, Pouwels, d’Angelo Support: BluePlanet: Cox et al., support@ESTEC/VUA: Ageli, Foing, Heemskerk, Beniest, Sitnikova, Preusterink |
| 2020 | EMMIHS-III | Crew: Musilova M., Brasileiro L., Edison K., Heemskerk M&R, Rajkakati P. Support: BluePlanet & ESTEC/VUA |
| 2020 | EMMIHS-IV | Crew: to be confirmed Support: BluePlanet & ESTEC/VUA |