NASA is set to send four astronauts \u2014 three from the United States and one from Canada \u2014 on a trip around the moon and back without landing there. This is the first time that anyone would travel this far from Earth since Apollo 17 in 1972.<\/p>\n
If Artemis II succeeds, missions that return astronauts to the moon\u2019s surface could follow later in the decade.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what to know about the mission, and the astronauts making the trip.<\/p>\n
What is the Space Launch System rocket? <\/p>\n
This is NASA\u2019s big new rocket \u2014 the present-day equivalent of the Saturn V used during the Apollo moon landings. It is 322 feet tall and weighs 5.75 million pounds when filled with propellant. Launching from NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, it is capable of sending about 60,000 pounds of payload to the moon.<\/p>\n
The design is a remix of technologies developed in the 1970s for the space shuttles.<\/p>\n
NASA led the design of the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule, and it hired the commercial companies SpaceX and Blue Origin to provide the lunar landers for future Artemis missions.<\/p>\n
What is the Orion spacecraft? <\/p>\n
Four astronauts were selected for the mission in 2023 and have been training for their journey since then. The three NASA astronauts \u2014 the commander Reid Wiseman, the pilot Victor Glover and a mission specialist, Christina Koch \u2014 have been to the International Space Station. Mr. Glover is set to be the first Black man to travel around the moon, and Ms. Koch the first woman. A mission specialist from Canada, Jeremy Hansen, has not yet been to space. Mr. Hansen will be the first person who is not a NASA astronaut to make the trip.<\/p>\n
Orion is the spacecraft that will carry the astronauts to the moon and back. The top part \u2014 the crew module \u2014 will return to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of San Diego.<\/p>\n
Why is NASA going back to the moon? <\/p>\n
After Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, many felt that the space race with the Soviet Union was won and that new lunar missions were not worth the expense. In the decades since, NASA has focused on low-Earth orbit exploration with the space shuttles and the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
During the first Trump administration, going back to the moon became a priority for NASA and the program continued under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The Artemis missions aim to explore the moon for scientific discovery and mine it for resources like frozen water for later space missions, and helium-3 for future fusion power plants.<\/p>\n
Artemis I: The first mission of the Artemis program, launched in November 2022, sent an uncrewed Orion capsule into orbit around the moon. Along the way, the mission deployed several small satellites known as CubeSats. Orion returned to Earth 26 days later.<\/p>\n
Artemis II: This year\u2019s mission aims to test the life-support and other critical systems on Orion. After separating from the upper stage of the rocket, the crew plans to test Orion\u2019s ability to execute docking maneuvers for future flights. If any serious problems arise while Orion is still in Earth orbit, mission managers will bring the astronauts home.<\/p>\n
Once the spacecraft heads to the moon, it will be on what is known as a \u201cfree return\u201d trajectory \u2014 the moon\u2019s gravity will swing the capsule directly back to Earth without the need for any firing of the engines. That means the Orion capsule could return to Earth even if there were a failure of the propulsion system.<\/p>\n
As the Orion flies by the moon\u2019s far side, the astronauts will make observations of the lunar surface, including parts that have never been seen by human eyes. (The Apollo missions were timed so that the near side of the moon, where the astronauts landed, was in daylight, so the far side then was largely in darkness.)<\/p>\n
When the moon is between the spacecraft and Earth, communications with the astronauts will be interrupted for 30 to 50 minutes.<\/p>\n
Future Artemis missions: In February, NASA upended its plans for what happens after Artemis II. Artemis III was supposed to be the keystone event, landing astronauts near the south pole of the moon by the end of 2028. Instead, it is now rescheduled to launch in mid-2027, and remain in Earth orbit as a test flight for practicing rendezvousing with one or both of the lunar landers that are under development by SpaceX and Blue Origin. And if it goes well, it could set up two landing attempts, Artemis IV and Artemis V, in 2028. That would meet President Trump\u2019s goal of sending NASA astronauts back to the moon before the end of his second term.<\/p>\n
Over the last two decades, NASA has spent more than $50 billion developing and building the Space Launch System, the Orion capsule and the accompanying ground systems needed to launch them. There is no simple price tag for just Artemis II, although a report by the NASA inspector general in 2021 said each launch of the Space Launch System and Orion capsule costs about $4.1 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA is set to send four astronauts \u2014 three from the United States and one from Canada \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72532,23680,72533,9,11,10,72534,72535,1876],"class_list":["post-179526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-artemis-program","tag-moon","tag-national-aeronautics-and-space-administration","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-rocket-science-and-propulsion","tag-space-and-astronomy","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}