NASA has been planning a mission to return humanity to the Moon since 1972. Following in the footsteps of the Apollo program, This campaign, named Artemis, aims to take humans to the Earth’s natural satellite at least by 2025.
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The first mission of this project, according to National Geographic, took off on Wednesday, November 16, 2022, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (United States). Despite the delays, the agency hopes to overcome the investigations and taking humans to the Moon, as well as venturing to Mars.
During missions, Artemis crews will live aboard Orion, a capsule designed to keep a crew of four alive and well in deep space for up to 21 days.
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“Each of them will fly with a European Service Module, which will carry solar panels, life support systems, fuel tanks and the main engine needed to enter lunar orbit.“, says Natgeo.
In detail, The rocket is 98 meters tall with a central stage that burns a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. It uses four RS-25 rocket engines, originally developed for the space shuttle program.
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“Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight to the Moon and back, will use refurbished engines that have flown on at least three Space Shuttle missions,” they said.
While the program will be developed in stages seeking to study the scope of the mission, Artemis I, the first, was an unmanned launch. This would be the first mission which would last between four and six weeks taking Orion into orbit around the Moon and then back to Earth.
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For the second stage, Artemis II, scheduled for this year, which has not been confirmed, it is expected to be The first manned mission with four astronauts inside Orion that will orbit the Moon for 10 days and return to Earth.
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And finally, the third and final stage, Artemis III, is the mission intended to return people to the lunar surface that will be launched no earlier than 2025. This will have four astronauts and will be developed in the same way as Artemis II, Unlike when Orion enters orbit it will dock with a SpaceX Starship vehicle that will be waiting for it.
“Those astronauts will spend about 6.5 days exploring and researching, and then Starship will transport the crew back to lunar orbit, where the astronauts will return to Orion and return to Earth.“, they point out.
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