Back to Moon: Nasa set to launch Artemis-1 lunar mission on Monday

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 18:56:23 +0000

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In a step towards sending humans back to Moon over half a century later, Nasa is set to launch Artemis-1 mission on Monday, which will be the US space agency’s first non-crew mission to the Moon in recent times that will pave the way for the manned orbital mission (Artemis-2) and manned landing mission (Artemis 3) in 2025.
The new Space Launch System (SLS) 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. The Orion spacecraft that will be launched by the rocket is scheduled to travel to the Moon, deploy some small satellites and then settle into orbit.
“Artemis-I will be the first in a series of increasingly complex missions to build a long-term human presence at the Moon for decades to come. The primary goals for Artemis I are to demonstrate Orion’s systems in a spaceflight environment and ensure a safe re-entry, descent, splashdown and recovery prior to the first flight with crew on Artemis II,” says Nasa.
“This is a mission that truly will do what hasn’t been done and learn what isn’t known,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis I mission manager at Nasa headquarters in Washington.
Artemis-1 will test how well SLS and Orion can complete a mission to the Moon and back and will ensure that both rocket and the spacecraft can safely ferry astronauts that far into space and back. The spacecraft will stay in orbit for approximately six days to collect data and allow mission controllers to assess the performance of the spacecraft.
The SLS is a new type of rocket system because it has both a combination of liquid oxygen and hydrogen main engines and two strap-on solid rocket boosters derived from the space shuttle. It’s really a hybrid between the space shuttle and Apollo’s Saturn V rocket.
The mission is also going to carry a series of small satellites that will be placed in orbit of the Moon. Those will do some useful precursor science, everything from looking further into the permanently shadowed craters where scientists think there is water to just doing more measurements of the radiation environment.
The Artemis programme is driven by a number of different goals. It includes in situ resource utilisation, which means using resources at hand like water ice and lunar soil to produce food, fuel and building materials. The Nasa administration has said that in that first crewed flight, on Artemis-3, there will be at least one woman and very likely a person of colour.
Though no humans will be aboard in the Artemis-1, a mannequin — nicknamed Commander Moonikin Campos to honor a legendary Nasa engineer who helped bring Apollo-13 safely back to Earth — will be on board, sitting inside the commander’s seat. Various sensors on its seat and spacesuit will gather data about vibrations, acceleration and radiation throughout the mission. Two additional mannequin torsos will be on board, outfitted with thousands of sensors to record even more details.The main objective of the uncrewed mission is to test the rocket’s heat shield, which will protect astronauts upon re-entry, Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said.
Additionally, a package called Callisto, named for the companion of Artemis in Greek mythology, will be flying inside Orion. Callisto houses both an Amazon Alexa and a touchscreen that will host Cisco’s Webex software. The payload is meant to test out smart tools that future astronauts might use on Orion in order to communicate over video with the mission control and get information about where they are in space.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

NASA shoots for the Moon, on its way to Mars

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 12:29:16 +0000

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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, US: NASA’s most powerful rocket yet is set to blast off Monday on the maiden voyage of a mission to take humans back to the Moon, and eventually to Mars.
Fifty years after the last Apollo mission, the space program called Artemis is to get under way with the blast off of the uncrewed 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at 8:33 am (1233 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Tens of thousands of people are on hand along the beaches of Florida to watch this launch that’s been decades in the making. They include Vice President Kamala Harris.
Hotels around Cape Canaveral are booked solid with between 100,000 and 200,000 spectators expected to attend the launch.
The goal of the flight, baptized Artemis 1, is to test the SLS and the Orion crew capsule that sits atop the rocket.
The capsule will orbit the Moon to see if the vessel is safe for people in the near future. At some point Artemis will see a woman and a person of color walk on the Moon for the first time.
“This mission goes with a lot of hopes and dreams of a lot of people. And we now are the Artemis generation,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Saturday.
The massive orange-and-white rocket has been sitting on the space center’s Launch Complex 39B for a week.
Its fuel tanks were to be filled overnight Sunday into Monday with more than three million liters of liquid hydrogen and oxygen.
NASA said there is an 80 percent chance of acceptable weather for a liftoff on time at the beginning of a launch window lasting two hours.
For the first time a woman — Charlie Blackwell-Thompson — will give the final green light for liftoff. Women now account for 30 percent of the staff in the control room; there was just one back with Apollo 11.
Cameras will capture every moment of the 42-day trip and include a selfie of the spacecraft with the Moon and Earth in the background.
The Orion capsule will orbit around the Moon, coming within 60 miles (100 kilometers) at its closest approach and then firing its engines to get to a distance 40,000 miles beyond, a record for a spacecraft rated to carry humans.
Besides the weather, any kind of technical snafu could delay the liftoff at the last minute, NASA officials have said, stressing that this is a test flight.
If the rocket is unable to take off on Monday, September 2 and 5 have been penciled in as alternative flight dates.
One of the primary objectives of the mission is to test the capsule’s heat shield, which at 16 feet in diameter is the largest ever built.
On its return to the Earth’s atmosphere, the heat shield will have to withstand a speed of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). That is half as hot as the Sun.
Taking the place of people for now, dummies fitted with sensors will take the place of crew members, recording acceleration, vibration and radiation levels.
It will deploy small satellites to study the lunar surface.
A complete failure would be devastating for a program that is costing $4.1 billion per launch and is already running years behind schedule.
“What we are starting with the launch Monday is not a near term sprint, but a long term marathon to bring the solar system and beyond into our sphere,” said Bhavya Lal, NASA associate administrator for technology, policy, and strategy.
The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts into orbit around the Moon without landing on its surface. The crew of Artemis 3 is to land on the Moon in 2025 at the earliest.
While the Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon were exclusively white men, the Artemis program plans to include the first woman and person of color.
And since humans have already visited the Moon, Artemis has its sights set on another lofty goal — an eventual crewed mission to Mars.
The Artemis program is to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface.
Gateway would serve as a staging and refueling station for a voyage to Mars that would take a minimum of several months.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

artemis – Link Punjabi

Back to Moon: Nasa set to launch Artemis-1 lunar mission on Monday

NASA shoots for the Moon, on its way to Mars