The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Cabildo of Lanzarote, through the Geopark Lanzarote and Chinijo Archipelago, have signed a collaboration agreement for the island to remain the natural setting for the PANGAEA project (Planetary Analogue Geological and Astrobiological Exercise for Astronauts). This agreement means that researchers, scientists and ESA astronauts will continue to explore and train in Lanzarote, "in an environment that transports them to a geological reality analogous to the one they will find in outer space."
For those responsible for the European organization, Lanzarote meets the strategic, geological and landscape conditions ideal for carrying out their training: "It is the most realistic way we have to prepare for space travel," they have pointed out from the ESA, which has moved its technical and human teams to the island for the last three years.
The Cabildo affirms that the institution and the European organization have decided to formalize their "satisfactory" collaboration after the success with which the first three PANGAEA field trainings developed by the ESA concluded, which finds in the landscapes of Lanzarote "the perfect environment to improve the efficiency of future expeditions to the Moon and Mars."
Virtual classroom until 2022
Lanzarote will therefore be "the territory in which the most advanced research and technology will be combined to train ESA technicians in their space missions for the next three years", it is indicated from the Cabildo.
Thus, until 2022, the island will be the virtual classroom that will host the field training program designed by the space agency in the areas of astrobiology and planetary geology with the aim of providing astronauts with a basic knowledge of the environment and geological processes that can be found on other planets. These trainings include the testing of technological tools for taking samples and carrying out scientific analyzes on the ground, as well as the development of operational concepts for geological field activities.
The last ESA training in Lanzarote was held during the past month of November, in a degraded area of the municipality of Tinajo that maintains "intact" the characteristics of the earth's crust, which served, for a few days, to simulate the special geological conditions of Mars and the Moon.