Europe is planning to set a series of human missions to the lunar vicinity by early 2020s, with a deadline of 2040. The European Space Agency (ESA) aims to establish a lunar base that would improve the human exploration of the solar system.

European space planners call the effort as “comeback to the moon.” The ESA hosted an international symposium on December 15, where more than 200 scientists and space officials from 28 countries discussed their intentions to return to the moon.

In July, ESA Chief Johann-Dietrich Woerner said he aims for the establishment of a “moon village,” a facility that would be built and operated by space agencies and private companies. The facility will serve as a research base on the moon, which is one of the main intentions discussed on ESA's two-day symposium in the Netherlands, according to Inverse.

The space agency also aims to start establishing a presence in the cislunar space, the region of space near the moon, and on the lunar orbit. The developments could promote further scientific research about the moon and make manned and unmanned deep-space missions easier for the ESA and other space agencies.

"The ESA space-exploration strategy sets the moon as a priority destination for humans on the way to Mars, and the recent talk of a 'Moon Village' certainly has generated a lot of positive energy in Europe… [of] Europe playing a role in a global human exploration scenario," Space.com quoted NASA's Kathy Laurini, co-chair for the Exploration Roadmap Working Group for the Global Exploration Roadmap.

Besides Europe, some countries are also aiming to explore the lunar surface, according to Paul Spudis, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. "There is most definitely international interest in human missions to the moon," he said.

Spudis told Space.com that India, Japan and China have strong interest to explore the moon. China’s lunar plans has been considered as the “most ambitious of all.”

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