"The lunar south pole is an absolutely extraordinary geologic terrain," says David Kring, a lunar geologist at the Center for Lunar Science & Exploration in Houston, Texas. Those locations have been chosen for ease of landing, exposure to sunlight so that a spacecraft can generate solar power, and their nearness to possible permanently shadowed ice deposits. NASA recently announced 13 sites near the moon's south pole as candidates for the Artemis III surface mission a few years from now. A lunar base could prove an invaluable stepping stone for crewed flights to Mars, where the moon's low gravity would make such missions easier to launch. On a future landing, NASA hopes to be able to mine water ice that has been confirmed deep in polar craters that never see sunlight - a critical resource for drinking, breathable oxygen and to eventually produce rocket fuel.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center via YouTube Artemis could be key in getting to Mars The six-week Artemis I test flight will send Orion into what is known as a distant retrograde orbit, an oblong circuit that will take it just 62 miles from the moon's surface at one point and well beyond the moon at another. The cone-shaped Orion spacecraft, which will take up to four astronauts into lunar orbit on future missions, resembles the Apollo-era "command module." Finally, a European service module, attached to Orion, is comparable in function to Apollo's service module and will provide propulsion, electricity, water, oxygen and climate control to future crews. So, the capability is much greater and larger beyond just the moon landing." "We've got our missions that we're focused on right now to the moon," she says. Boeing's chief engineer for the SLS program, Noelle Zietsman, says that in building the giant rocket, engineers drew from the "foundations and fundamentals" of the Saturn V and space shuttle years. GET THE LAUNCH CONSOLE - APP TODAY - Come see, hear and feel One of the most dramatic events On Earth Rockets TERRAN 1 Rocket Astra Rocket 3 Space Launch. The rocket's upper stage will be powered by a type of engine first developed in the late 1950s.īoeing is the prime contractor for the SLS core stage and upper stage. The SLS sports stretched versions of the solid-rocket boosters used by the space shuttle, which last flew more than a decade ago, as well as four RS-25 engines that were refurbished and are being reused after previously flying on shuttle missions. Another component of the original Artemis program, Gateway, a sort of deep-space way station for astronauts to and from a future moon base, is also still under development. The vehicle has yet to be tested in orbit. Elon Musk's SpaceX has been contracted to build a lunar variant of its Starship to take astronauts to the surface.
#Recent nasa launch today series#
But one key piece of the program - the vehicle that will actually land on the moon's surface - will not be part of the first Artemis mission. Were celebrating the anniversary with the launch of a video series following two sounding rockets that flew over.
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