What is Artemis, NASA’s Moon mission and when will it launch?

NASA had to cancel its first launch attempt for Artemis I on August 29, after finding a problem with one of the SLS rocket's engines. The engine was having trouble reaching the proper temperature range for takeoff. The next launch attempt will be on September 2.

"This is a brand new rocket. It won't fly until it's ready," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Monday. "There are millions of components to this rocket and its systems. Needless to say, the complexity is overwhelming when you put it all at the center of a countdown."

Nearly 50 years after the US first put a man on the moon, NASA is working to fix a problem that delayed Monday's launch of the Artemis 1 mission, which aims to establish a base on the Moon by 2025. Former NASA Assistant Administrator and author of “Escaping Gravity: My mission to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age,” Lori Garver, joins News NOW to share what makes returning to the moon so exciting. important and how the commercial spaceflight industry could help NASA address some of the challenges surrounding the mission.

Initially, the Artemis I launch attempt was planned for Monday, but an engine problem forced this attempt to be cancelled; we might be looking at September 2nd for attempt number 2, but with space missions, the future is never entirely certain. However, after years of delays and wads of extra money, a starry jaunt is finally in sight for Artemis I.

Although the vehicle commissioned for this effort, formally called the Space Launch System but also known as the world's most powerful rocket, won't take astronauts to the surface of the moon this time, it is something of a NASA golden ticket to places. virgins from outer space.

Pointing skyward and sporting the bright orange hue of its insulated spray coating, Artemis I's SLS will carry instruments into lunar orbit to gather vital information for the Artemis II mission, which will carry humans into orbit around the lunar sphere. Then Artemis II will pave the way for Artemis III, a 2025 mission that may, at long last, add more bootprints to the dusty gray ground, alongside those left behind by Apollo astronauts decades ago.

What is the Artemis mission?

NASA is embarking on a year-long mission called Artemis that involves a multi-stage plan to send astronauts to the moon and beyond. The Artemis mission will culminate in the landing of the first woman and person of colour on the moon.

This mission will prepare humanity for the long journey to Mars and help us establish a sustainable lunar economy. NASA is working with international and commercial partners to carry out the mission.

Why is NASA going back to the Moon?

ASA does not intend to simply repeat the exploits of the Apollo missions with Artemis, but to go to the Moon 'and stay there' means investigating the possibility of establishing bases both in lunar orbit and on the Moon's surface, though the main goal for now still involves returning humans to the Moon by the middle of the decade.

Key NASA mission objectives include:

• Equality: A primary goal of NASA is to land the first woman and first person of colour on the lunar surface.

• Technology: From rockets to space suits, the technologies currently being developed are designed to pave the way for future deep space missions.

• Partnerships: The Artemis program is one of NASA's first large-scale collaborations with commercial companies, such as SpaceX and Boeing.

• Long-term presence: Where the Apollo 17 crew spent three days on the lunar surface, Artemis intends to establish a base to extend voyages to weeks and possibly months.

• Knowledge: As more is known about the Moon compared to 50 years ago (and technologies have come a long way), NASA claims that this next series of missions will be able to retrieve samples more strategically than during the Apollo era.

• Resources: The discovery of water on the Moon and potential deposits of rare minerals hold promise for both scientific and economic exploration and exploitation.

These satellites are a reminder that NASA is interested in much more than visiting the moon. The Artemis program is laying the groundwork for an unprecedented level of activity on the lunar surface, including a human base camp, a series of nuclear reactors and a mineral mining operation. NASA has expressly said that it wants to develop a lunar economy, and the space agency has also established the Artemis Accords, a set of principles for exploring the Moon that more than 20 countries have already joined.

Eventually, NASA plans to make the moon a technical stopover on a much more ambitious journey: a human mission to Mars. Right now, it looks like that could happen sometime in the late 2030s. But while many of these plans are still some way off, it's clear that the Artemis program is much more than just a repeat of the Apollo program.

“Apollo was a political act in the context of the Cold War to demonstrate the national power of the United States to the world. It was explicitly a race with the Soviet Union to be the first to reach the moon. Once we first got to the moon, the reason to continue was gone," explains John Logsdon, founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. "Artemis is intended as the first program in a long-term program of human exploration."

Of course, all of this depends on the Artemis I mission running smoothly. NASA still needs to assess how well SLS and Orion work together during liftoff. The space agency also needs to study how well Orion survives its descent through the atmosphere, something we won't know for quite some time. If all goes well, the Orion capsule, along with its motley payload of science experiments and galactic gossip, will return to Earth and land in the Pacific Ocean in more than a month.

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