Eventually, NASA’s target is roughly one Artemis mission a year with the aim of establishing a permanent human presence on the Moon. This is to be followed by Artemis 3 a year or two later, which will land humans on the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17, again in 1972 (the crew will include the first woman to step foot on the Moon). Artemis 2, scheduled for launch in 2024, is slated to have astronauts orbit the Moon for the first time since 1972. The point of all this is supposed to be what comes next. This caused the ship to skip off the atmosphere and bounce back to 99,000 m, then resuming its descent. Upon returning to Earth, the spacecraft performed a new maneuver called a “skip entry,” initially plunging to an altitude of 61,000 m, then rolling 180 degrees (future astronauts would be upside down at that point) changing its center of gravity. One of these made seven orbits of the Moon, scanning for water and soil another hunted for hydrogen which possibly could be used for future rocket fuel another landed on the Moon to test surface radiation. It carried a secondary payload of ten mini satellites, called CubeSats, that were launched to carry out various science missions. No astronauts were aboard, only three mannequins to test the effects of radiation on the new Orion Crew Survival System suit (two of the mannequins were modeled with female anatomy), Amazon’s Alexa, a few toys, and a variety of plant and tree seeds.Īt 32 stories and 2.6 million kg for 8.8 million lbs of thrust, the SLS was the most powerful rocket ever built (at least until SpaceX’s Starship’s maiden voyage in April 2023 with 16.7 million lbs of thrust). Orion spent a couple of weeks in what’s called “distant retrograde orbit” which balances the gravitational pull of the Earth and Moon (enabling minimal fuel usage) before heading 40,000 miles past the Moon. The main goal was to orbit the Moon to gather data and to test systems. The mission, flown by the Orion spacecraft and powered into orbit by the Space Launch System (SLS), was in space for 25.5 days and covered 1.3 million miles. In the early hours of November 16th, 2022, after two previous attempts were scratched, NASA’s Artemis I mission took flight from Cape Canaveral.
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