The significance of NASA’s Artemis mission, the beginning of a new age of human exploration of the Moon 

The significance of NASA’s Artemis mission, the beginning of a new age of human exploration of the Moon 

Subject: Science and Tech

Section: Space Science

Context:

• NASA’s Artemis 1 mission is aimed at exploring the Moon with the specific objective of getting human beings back on the lunar surface and possibly beyond — to Mars and elsewhere.

But why does NASA want to go back to the Moon, where it has been several times, and last went 50 years ago?

• NASA officials today argue that the Moon missions are central to the human spaceflight program and not simply a do-over of the Apollo moon landings from 1969-72.
• It’s a future where NASA will land the first woman and the first person of colour on the Moon
• And on these increasingly complex missions, astronauts will live and work in deep space and will develop the science and technology to send the first humans to Mars.

So what does this new Moon mission hope to achieve?

• The new program was named Artemis by NASA leaders during the Trump administration. (In Greek mythology, Artemis, the goddess of wild animals, the hunt, and vegetation, as well as of chastity and childbirth, was the twin sister of Apollo, the much loved god of music and divination.)
• The program’s first step will be the upcoming test flight of the Moon rocket, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), with the Orion capsule on top where astronauts will sit during future missions. This uncrewed flight, during which Orion will swing around the moon before returning to Earth, is to wring out any issues with the spacecraft before putting people on board.
• In addition to the mission’s function as a proving ground for technologies needed for a much longer trip to Mars, NASA is also hoping to jump-start companies looking to set up a steady business of flying scientific instruments and other payloads to the moon, and to inspire students to enter science and engineering fields.
• China’s expanding space ambitions, which include a lunar base in the 2030s, also provided motivation for Artemi
• For scientists, the renewed focus on the Moon also promises a bonanza of new data in the coming years.
• The rocks collected by the astronauts during the Apollo missions upended planetary scientists’ understanding of the solar system. Analysis of radioactive isotopes provided precise dating of various regions of the Moon’s surface. The rocks also revealed a startling origin story for the Moon: It appears to have formed out of debris ejected into space when a Mars-size object slammed into Earth 4.5 billion years ago.
• It is the best place in the solar system to study the origin and evolution of planets in the solar system.

What new things have scientists discovered about the Moon in recent decades?

• Scientists have discovered that the Moon is not as dry as they had thought.
• Water, frozen at the bottom of eternally dark craters at the poles, is a valuable resource. It can provide drinking water for future astronauts visiting the Moon, and water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen.
• The oxygen could provide breathable air; oxygen and hydrogen could be used as rocket propellant. Thus, the Moon, or a refuelling station in orbit around the Moon, could serve as a stop for spacecraft to refill their tanks before heading into the solar system.
• The ices, if they were ancient accumulations over several billion years, could even provide a scientific history book of the solar system.
• Then NASA put in a call for proposals for a spacecraft that could tag along to the Moon with the upcoming Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission.
• In June 2009, the rocket carrying the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and LCROSS That October, LCROSS made its death dive into Cabeus crater, near the moon’s south pole.
• Instruments on an Indian orbiter, Chandrayaan-1, also found unmistakable signs of water, and scientists using state-of-the-art techniques found water locked up in the minerals of old Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 rocks.

Artemis 1 mission

• It is carrying several payloads in the form of small satellites called CubeSats, each of which is equipped with instruments meant for specific investigations and experiments.
• The focus of these investigations is clearly to explore long-term stays of human beings in space, and on the Moon. One CubeSat will search for water in all its forms, another will map the availability of hydrogen that can be utilised as a source of energy.
• Then there are biology experiments, investigating the behaviour of small organisms like fungi and algae in outer space, and the effect of radiation, especially the reaction on their genes.

The Orion Spacecraft

• The Orion spacecraft, which is specifically designed to carry astronauts into deep space on future missions, will have three dummy ‘passengers’ — mannequins made of material that mimic human bones, skin, and soft tissue. These would be equipped with a host of sensors to record the various impacts of deep space atmosphere on the human body.

Space Launch System

• The rocket that is being used for the Artemis missions, called Space Launch System, or SLS, is the most powerful ever built, more powerful than the Saturn V rockets that had taken the Apollo missions to the Moon.
• The giant, 98-metre-tall rocket, weighing 2,500 tonnes, can help the Orion spacecraft achieve speeds of over 36,000 km per hour, and take it directly to the Moon, which is 1,000 times farther than the International Space Station that sees a regular traffic of astronauts.