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Turkey aims for first Moon-orbiting mission in 2027
Spaceflight Now reports Turkey plans to launch TLM-1, an uncrewed lunar orbiter, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 in the second quarter of 2027.
Turkey plans to send its first spacecraft to the Moon next year on a SpaceX Falcon 9, according to Spaceflight Now, as the first of two uncrewed missions in the Turkish Lunar Mission program1.
The TLM-1 orbiter is contracted to fly between April and June 2027, with mission managers aiming for April, the outlet reported. A launcher for the follow-on TLM-2 lander has not been selected1.
If the flight succeeds, Turkey would become the ninth sovereign nation or grouping to operate a payload in the lunar environment, after China, the European Space Agency, India, Israel, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States, Spaceflight Now said1.
Project manager Burak Yağlioğlu outlined the program at the International Astronautical Congress in Turkey earlier this month. "As a nation with a moon on its flag, going to the Moon is a very, very, very long dream for us," he said, according to the report1.
Spaceflight Now said Tübitak Uzay built the roughly 3.6-ton spacecraft, with support from the Turkish Space Agency, and that DeltaV supplied a hybrid main engine using nitrous oxide and a polymeric solid fuel. The hybrid engine is to fire in Earth orbit for translunar injection and again for lunar insertion, with a separate bi-propellant system for thrusters1.
TLM-1 is designed for at least five months of operations in a 100-kilometer circular polar lunar orbit. Yağlioğlu said more than 80 percent of the equipment, 56 of 65 elements, was made in Turkey, the report said1.
The spacecraft carries four science instruments and three imaging and navigation payloads intended to study radiation, solar wind and meteoroid effects, magnetic anomalies and surface temperature. Environmental testing was to begin this week with a thermal vacuum chamber run1.
Yağlioğlu said TLM-2 remains early in development and is planned as a lander that would deploy a rover. Leftover propellant on TLM-1 is intended for a controlled impact as a rehearsal. No TLM-2 launch date was announced1.
