NASA announces new Moon Mission

[GS Paper 3 – Space, Science and Technology]

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has revealed its Artemis I Moon Mission.

NASA aims to land humans on the moon by 2024 with reference to this program. NASA has planned to set up Artemis Base camp on the surface and a gateway in the moon’s orbit.

About Artemis I Programme:

• It is a crewless space mission and the very first of NASA’s deep space exploration systems.

• The mission aims to stream information and to allow mission controllers to assess the functioning and performance of the spacecraft.

• The mission is standardized to travel 2,80,8000 miles from the earth for over 6 weeks.

• The spacecraft will be launched through the most dynamic rocket in the world, the Space Launch System rocket(SLS- Rocket) Entering cryogenic pop Propulsion stage Propulsion.

• The SLS rockets are designed for low-earth orbit space missions.

• The spacecraft will be embraced with the Orion Capsule that will remain in space without beaching to a space station.

• Canadian SpaceAgency, European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are major involvements of the program.

Implementation:

• The SLS rocket along with the Orion Capsule will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA.

• The spacecraft will deploy the interim Cryogenic propulsion stage, A liquid hydrogen based propulsion system that will give Orion the thrust needed to leave the Earth’s orbit and travel towards the moon.

• The service module that will be used to propel the Orion capsule will be provided by the European Space Agency.

• The spacecraft is supposed to communicate with the earth using a deep space network.

• It will fly around 100 kilometer above the surface of the moon and use its gravitational pull to propel Orion into an apostrophe orbit around 70,000 kilometer from the moon where it will stay for approximately 6 days.

• The Orion, thus, will do a close flyby with less than 100km of the moon’s surface and will use the service module and lunar gravity to expedite back towards the Earth.

• The mission will be completed as the spacecraft is back to earth.

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