Nasa set to launch Artemis-1 lunar mission
Context
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States is set to launch the Artemis-1 mission, which will take humans back to the Moon after more than half a century.
- Artemis-1 will be NASA's first non-crew mission to the Moon in recent history, paving the stage for the human orbital mission (Artemis-2) and manned landing mission (Artemis 3) in 2025.
About the Artemis-1 mission
- Artemis I (formerly called Exploration Mission-1) is the integrated test of NASA's deep space exploration systems namely-
- Orion spacecraft
- The complete Orion spacecraft - a partially reusable crewed spacecraft designed by Lockheed Martin and the European Service Module and manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space.
- Space Launch System (SLS) rocket
- Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which will be the most powerful rocket engine ever flown to space, even more powerful than Apollo's Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s.
- It will travel 280,000 miles from Earth, thousands of miles beyond the Moon over the course of about a four to six-week mission.
- Artemis 1 is the first planned uncrewed test flight in NASA's Artemis program which is designed to eventually land humans on the Moon again.
- The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was NASA's third human spaceflight program (after Project Mercury and Project Gemini), which succeeded in preparing and landing the first humans on the Moon from 1968 to 1972.
- Artemis-1, which will also deploy 10 CubeSat satellites, will test how well SLS and Orion can complete a mission to the Moon and back.
- Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before.
