Image: NASA
Turkey founded its space agency in 2018 and has since sent its first astronaut to orbit and built its own satellites. Its first Moon mission, AYAP-1, is now being tested for launch in 2027.
A decade ago Turkey had no space agency at all. Today it has flown its own astronauts, launched a satellite it designed and built at home, and finished building its first spacecraft bound for the Moon. If testing goes to plan, AYAP-1 will lift off in the first half of 2027, making Turkey one of only a handful of nations to send a mission of its own to the Moon.
A young space agency
The Turkish Space Agency, known by its Turkish initials TUA, was set up by presidential decree on 13 December 2018. In February 2021 President Erdoğan unveiled a ten-point National Space Programme, and the first goal on the list was the Moon.
The plan was always in two stages. First, a spacecraft launched on a foreign rocket would reach the Moon and make a deliberate hard landing on the surface. Second, a later mission would make a soft landing, ideally using a Turkish-built rocket. The original target for the first stage was 2023, the centenary of the Turkish Republic. Like most first Moon missions, it has taken longer than hoped.
AYAP-1: Turkey's first Moon mission
The first stage is now called AYAP-1, from the Turkish name for the Lunar Research Programme. The spacecraft has been designed, built and integrated by TÜBİTAK UZAY, the space technologies institute of Turkey's national research council, with some parts from abroad. Thales Alenia Space is supplying the communications transponder, and the Swedish Institute of Space Physics has provided a Lunar Neutrals Telescope to study how the solar wind interacts with the Moon's surface.
The mission plan is simple but demanding:
- **Launch** on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Florida, planned for the first half of 2027. - **Cruise** to the Moon over about two months. - **Science** from a 100 km polar orbit for at least three months, possibly much longer, studying water, magnetism and radiation with four scientific instruments. - **Finish** with a controlled hard landing, placing Turkish hardware on the lunar surface.
Building of the spacecraft was completed in 2026, and it is now going through acoustic, vibration, thermal-vacuum and electromagnetic tests at the Space Systems Integration and Test Centre in Ankara.
A home-grown engine
The most important technology on board may be the engine. AYAP-1 uses a hybrid rocket motor, which burns a solid fuel with a liquid oxidiser, developed by the Turkish company DeltaV. The same engine will push the spacecraft from Earth orbit towards the Moon, slow it down into lunar orbit and steer its final descent. If it works, Turkey will have proven a deep-space propulsion system of its own, which is exactly what the second stage of the programme needs.
People and satellites
Turkey's space programme is not only about the Moon. In January 2024 Alper Gezeravcı became the first Turkish astronaut, spending around two weeks on the International Space Station with the Axiom Mission 3 crew. In June 2024 Tuva Cihangir Atasever followed him with a suborbital flight on Virgin Galactic. The following month Türksat 6A, the first communications satellite designed and built in Turkey, launched successfully, another sign of how quickly the country's space industry is growing.
Next: AYAP-2
AYAP-1 is meant to be the first step, not the last. The follow-on mission, AYAP-2, is planned as a soft lander, and potentially a rover, which would put working Turkish equipment on the lunar surface rather than simply reaching it.
Why it matters
Turkey joins a growing list of countries, from India to Japan and the UAE, building their own way to the Moon. Each new mission adds to what we know about the lunar surface and helps prove the technology that future explorers will rely on. For anyone who owns a plot up there, it is a reminder that the Moon is getting busier every year.
