NASA has finally unveiled a detailed plan (PDF link) to land astronauts on the moon by 2024. The first stage would involve three launches of the massive (and as yet untested) SLS rocket, culminating in a landing near the moon's south pole in 2024. That would be followed by the construction of a Lunar Gateway station in orbit around the moon and a permanent lunar base.
The uncrewed Artemis I mission would involve the inaugural launch of NASA’s Space Launch System, which should happen in November 2021. The Orion spacecraft, designed to take astronauts to lunar orbit, has already been approved for prime time.
Artemis II would launch at some point in 2023 and deliver astronauts to lunar orbit, in what would be a reprise of the Apollo 8 and 10 “dress rehearsal” missions. This mission should give the crew an opportunity to manually pilot Orion, in a demonstration to assess the spacecraft’s “handling qualities and related hardware and software” which “cannot be readily gained on the ground in preparation for rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking, as well as undocking operations in lunar orbit beginning on Artemis III,” according to NASA.
During Artemis III, scheduled for 2024, NASA would deliver two astronauts—a man and a woman—to the lunar surface, which hasn’t seen a human footstep since 1972. The duo would stay on the surface for about seven days, during which time they’d collect samples and perform scientific experiments, among other tasks. These lunar explorers will be wearing fancy new spacesuits, dubbed Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Units, or xEMUs, designed to be more flexible and allow for more mobility than the Apollo versions.
I would love to see this happen, but realistically I doubt there's much chance that it will, given the current political environment and the pandemic. If I were betting, I'd put my money on SpaceX landing a modified Starship before NASA gets it's act together, and at about a third of the cost.
No comments:
Post a Comment