After 51 years, humans are preparing to return to the Moon. In an update on the Artemis program published on Tuesday (7), NASA officials (United States space agency) poised to launch a manned mission around the natural satellite in November next year. The announcement comes after an analysis proved the success of the Artemis 1 mission’s drone flight, carried out in December 2022.
According to NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free, “We are learning as much as possible from Artemis I to ensure we fully understand all aspects of our systems and apply these lessons learned to how we plan and fly manned missions.”
The Artemis 1 Mission successfully completed the test flight of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System launch system, which will be reused on future manned missions to the Moon, on 11 December. The initial assessment on launch day and the comprehensive analysis completed Wednesday showed that the SLS flew as designed and “exceeded expectations in many cases,” according to the NASA report.
What will the new manned mission to the Moon be like?
The Artemis 2 manned mission is scheduled for late November 2024. While it is designed to fly a crew of four around the Moon, there will be no landing yet.. The second mission of the current project will serve to test the technology and systems that will be used by the crew of Artemis 3 only a year later. The future lunar module is still under development at SpaceX.
Future crew members of Artemis 2 are still kept secret by NASA, but their names are expected to be revealed later this year. All that is known so far is that one of them will be Canadian.
Mission teams hope to move the Mobile Launcher to Launchpad 39B starting in June of this year. The rescue team and the US Department of Defense completed a series of rigorous tests to ensure the safe return of the astronauts.
Source: Tec Mundo
I’m Blaine Morgan, an experienced journalist and writer with over 8 years of experience in the tech industry. My expertise lies in writing about technology news and trends, covering everything from cutting-edge gadgets to emerging software developments. I’ve written for several leading publications including Gadget Onus where I am an author.
