The Artemis Program
Nobody has been to the moon since 1972, when Apollo 17 lifted off the surface. Until now...
Since the 1990's, NASA has been focused on building and using the International Space Station. But recently, NASA has been shifting it's focus away from the ISS and towards the moon.
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NASA's Artemis program plans to develop a sustainable presence on the moon. Another key goal of the program is to land the first woman, and the first person of color in 2025.
The Artemis Program is going to be a collaborative effort by many different countries, read about the Artemis Accords.
How NASA is going to the moon
NASA will use multiple different spacecraft to get to the moon. They will launch humans on the Orion spacecraft, which can only be launched on the Space Launch System (SLS).
Once they are in Earth orbit, Orion will dock with a lunar lander and transfer two of it's crew members who will land on the moon. At the end of the mission the crew will reunite on Orion and will return to Earth.
Later on in the 2020's NASA will build a small space station in lunar orbit called the Lunar Gateway. The Lunar Gateway will be built with the help of the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
Main Artemis Missions
Artemis-1
November 16th, 2022
Artemis-1 is the first major mission of the Artemis program. It is an unmanned test of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. It launched on November 16th, 2022. SLS launched Orion from launch pad 39B in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Orion will head into an orbit that will go around the moon multiple times before returning to Earth. During the mission, NASA is testing that Orion is able to navigate, perform maneuvers, and communicate with Earth. Orion is scheduled to return to Earth and splash down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11th.
Mission Patch Credit: NASA
Artemis-2
May 2024
Artemis-2 will be the first manned mission as part of the Artemis program. It will not land on the moon, but will send 4 astronauts on a mission that will loop around the moon. The crew has not been announced, but we know that one of the astronauts will be Canadian. (The rest will probably be American). During the mission the rendezvous and life support capabilities of Orion will be tested. The mission will last for about 10 days and will end with The astronauts landing in the Pacific Ocean.
Orion Spacecraft Credit: NASA
Artemis-3
2025
Artemis-3 will be the first manned lunar landing since the 1970's. It was originally scheduled to happen in 2024, but was recently pushed back due to delays caused by the Human Landing System (HLS) selection process. The mission will begin with the 4-person crew launching on Orion using the SLS rocket. Once in lunar orbit, two astronauts will transfer to SpaceX's Lunar Lander while two will stay in lunar orbit. The crew has not been announced, but we know that NASA wants to land the first woman and first person of color on the moon. The mission will last about a month and will also end with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
Orion Spacecraft Credit: NASA
Robotic Missions
CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) is a small satellite that launched on June 28th,2022. Its two-fold mission is to demonstrate using a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) before NASA puts the Lunar Gateway there, and test out a new navigation technology known as CAPS.
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Artistic rendering of CAPSTONE heading toward the Moon. Credit: NASA
During the Artemis 1 mission, 10 CubeSats will be deployed. Some of them include, OMOTENASHI, which will attempt to land on the moon, LunaH-Map and Lunar IceCube, which will map water ice on the moon and NEA Scout which will navigate to an asteroid using a solar sail. The Artemis-1 CubeSats will test out a variety of new communication systems, propulsion methods, and sensors. The small satellites are pioneers that could change our understanding of the solar system.
