ESA’s Moonlight programme: Pioneering the path for lunar exploration (2024) (esa.int)

Honestly, pleasantly surprised that this is a European-led initiative, it’s really great to see ESA stepping up with such an ambitious project.

The Moonlight programme is one of those low-key projects that could end up being essential. Reliable navigation and comms around the Moon turns exploration into long-term infrastructure. It's less about planting flags, more about making the Moon actually usable.

I mean, kudos to ESA for already thinking about connectivity on the moon. But maybe a bit more pressing would be the launch of IRIS2, so we get at least sovereign satellite based telecommunications in Europe. It's set to launch with the first rockets in 2029 but the full budget post 2027 hasn't even been approved yet.

Delta-V or better the second book critical mass from Daniel Suarez.

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The navigation part will be of great use to landers there, I've heard too often that the ground sensing radars lock on too late to help guide the landing. Getting a good location estimate might relieve some of that pressure.

For recent landers also didn't really know where exactly they landed, only after getting spotted in images taken from orbit

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