-Nadya Tamrin
The National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) left the whole world stunned when it landed the first man on the moon in 1969. It showed humanity that sky is not the limit; rather there is abundance to learn beyond earth’s surface. 50 years later mankind is making its way back to learn more about the moon and take a giant leap towards Mars. This ongoing lunar exploration Program is called the ‘Artemis Mission’.
In honor of sending the first woman in history to the moon in 2024, the mission has been named 'Artemis'. In Greek Mythology, Artemis is the Goddess of the moon and twin sister of Apollo who is God of the sun. They were siblings who served different purposes; similarly ‘Artemis Mission’ will work on different objectives than the 1969 ‘Apollo 11’.
The ‘Artemis Mission’ is an internationally collaborated project that is developing the most upgraded spaceship to take human to the south pole of the moon. They will strategically try to extract water and minerals available on moon’s surface and bring it back to earth for usage. The mission plans to create a permanent human habitation on moon to stay and learn more for several weeks or months.
The spacecraft being built to send astronauts is named the Orion spaceship. It contains the crew, command and service module, which is necessary to survive in the space. The Orion module will go and attach itself to the space station orbiting the moon called lunar gateway. This will serve as the astronaut’s base throughout the lunar exploration. There after the Moon landing vehicle will bring the astronauts to the moon’s surface.
In preparation for the final sendoff of astronauts, NASA will be doing two test and trial round. ‘Artemis I’ will go uncrewed to test the Space Landing System and Orion spacecraft together. ‘Artemis II’ will be sent to test the Orion spacecraft crewed. ‘Artemis III’ is the final spaceship that will be sent with astronauts.
About 50 years have passed by since Apollo space craft have landed on the moon. Over this time period technology innovation has taken a revolutionary turn. Hence, the Artemis mission has quite few different fragments than the 1969 Apollo mission. The Orion capsule is 5m in width; it can take up to 6 astronauts and has 26,520 kg capacity. Whereas Apollo capsule was 3.9m in width; it could carry 4 astronauts and had 28,800kg capacity. The delta velocity of Orion will be 1200 m/s while Apollo had 2800 m/s. During Apollo mission the lunar landing vehicle could transport two astronauts at a time and could remain for 75 hours only. But now with the upgraded lunar landing vehicle four astronauts can be transported to the moon and can remain for two whole weeks. The Lunar Earth Orbit (LEO) for Apollo was 140 tonnes, whereas the LEO for Artemis mission will be 95 tonnes. In the upcoming Artemis mission astronauts can take multiple journeys from their base to the moon to work on their exploration with a length of time. But during Apollo mission astronauts were able to take only one return journey. The spacesuits have also been improved to be more flexible than before.
The Artemis team has selected 18 astronauts to travel to the moon; of which 9 are woman. This is an ecstatic moment as woman will be stepping on the moon for the first time in history. In an introductory video one of the female astronauts, Jessica Meir mentioned, “You’re travelling around and moving in a different realm. You have to trust in your hardware. You have to trust in your equipment…In my experience as a scientist diving under water or working as an astronaut in space, you are challenged both mentally and physically at the same time and I think those are the times that I felt the most content in my life.” Jessica Meir has no fear towards the risks comes along with her job; rather she feels the most alive when she is challenged. The Artemis mission will play a huge role to bring modification in science, economics, business and humanity in general. It is going to inspire the new generation to be part of something so much bigger than just them. Yet, again it will prove to the entire global citizens that sky is never the limit for your dreams.
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