The First Turkish Lunar Mission Part 1: Programmatic, Mission and System Aspects

The first Lunar Research Program Project aims to successfully carry out Turkiye's first Lunar mission and become one of the few countries that can carry out scientific activities on the Moon. For this, a spacecraft system consisting space segment and ground segment that will explore Moon and reach Lunar surface will be designed, developed and operated. The scientific and operational data to be collected and the mission operations experience to be gained will form the basis for the soft landing mission targeted for second phase of the program. In this paper, the programmatic, mission and system aspects of the first Turkish Lunar Mission are presented. Firstly, programmatic aspects are introduced. The program management and systems engineering challenges are discussed. Secondly, the mission aspects are summarized by defining the mission and payloads. Finally, the system aspects are provided through an overview of the space and ground segments.