Tag: moon
NASA just picked these astronauts to go back to the moon
NASA has named four astronauts as the first people who will fly around the moon in over 50 years, leading a pivotal spaceflight before humans return to the lunar surface.
U.S. astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Victor Glover, and G. Reid Wiseman will ride in the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission, expected to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as early as November 2024. Joining them will be astronaut Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency.
The 32-story mega moon rocket — the most powerful in the world — will shoot them into the sky with 8.8 million pounds of thrust, a force equal to that of 160,000 Corvette engines. Not since the final Apollo flight in 1972 have astronauts made this journey.
Though women have trained and tested alongside men since the early 1960s, this mission marks the first time in history any woman will have traveled into deep space, hundreds of thousands of miles beyond the low-Earth orbiting International Space Station. For years, NASA simply said female applicants did not meet the stringent requirements for crew assignments. Now in 2023, the agency freely admits this day has been a long time coming.
“You have already been in the history books as a record-setting astronaut. You’re a trailblazer and a role model for every generation to come,” said Joe Acaba, NASA’s chief of astronauts, of Koch, who will be the first woman to travel into deep space. “And as the only professional engineer in the crew, I know who mission control will be calling on when it’s time to fix something on board.”
Credit: NASA
Artemis II will break another barrier by including the first person of color on a space mission beyond low-Earth orbit, pilot Victor Glover. NASA officials say the diverse crew assignments signify the immense cultural shifts that have taken place within the agency since the dawn of the program decades ago, when white men dominated human space exploration and aeronautics.
“All four astronauts will represent the best of humanity as they explore for the benefit of all,” said Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA Johnson Space Center, in a statement.
Artemis II purpose
The mission is expected to serve as a crucial stress test of Orion’s life-support systems, the new passenger spacecraft NASA hopes will shuttle astronauts to the moon to carry out its long-term ambitions: establishing a permanent lunar base for research. The agency intends to use the moon as a testbed for a future mission to Mars, over 130 million miles in the distance. The crew selections were announced Monday morning from NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Credit: NASA
“The commitment to go to the moon should be seen in the context of going to Mars,” Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s former associate administrator for science, told Mashable last year. “That is perhaps one of the hardest things we’ll have ever done as humans, in terms of technology, in terms of objectives. It’s harder than going to the moon, it’s harder than the Apollo program. And the way we’re doing it is very different. We’re doing it as a world, not as a country.”
“The way we’re doing it is very different. We’re doing it as a world, not as a country.”
That vision, a future in which people can travel to and survive on Mars, means NASA needs practice and can’t do it single-handedly. By the time the agency is ready to send the first astronauts to walk on the moon as early as 2025, for example, it will have spent about $93 billion on the project, according to a federal watchdog. To become multiplanetary requires a host of other spacefaring nations and commercial partners to bear the costs.
Credit: NASA
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NASA has been getting buy-in on its plans from other nations through the Artemis Accords, an international agreement establishing standards for safe and collaborative space exploration. Agency officials say this mission, which includes a Canadian astronaut, demonstrates their commitment to international partnerships through the Artemis program.
“It is not lost on any of us that the United States can choose to go back to the moon by themselves,” Hansen said. “But America has made a very deliberate choice over decades to curate a global team, and that, in my definition, is true leadership.”
Artemis 2 mission
Credit: NASA
Over 10 days, the Artemis II astronauts will make two oval-shaped loops around Earth before flying around the moon. A Houston team will control most of the flight, but for the second Earth orbit, the astronauts will take charge of piloting a maneuver. That step will test Orion’s capabilities for docking and undocking — necessary during the next Artemis III mission.
For the duration of the flight, NASA will observe how the spacecraft handles the air supply, removing carbon dioxide and water vapor as the astronauts breathe, especially during periods when they exercise.
Orion will make a single lunar flyby during the mission, putting the astronauts on a path that will use Earth’s gravity to reel them back home.
Credit: NASA
This second mission follows the completion of the inaugural Artemis spaceflight last December. NASA launched the empty Orion spacecraft with its mega moon rocket on Nov. 16, 2022. It flew a 1.4 million-mile journey, testing various orbits that had never been previously attempted.
After 25.5 days, the spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and was recovered. Three months later, after reviewing flight data, the U.S. space agency called the mission a success.
But since its return, NASA’s post-flight analysis has found the rocket’s platform and spacecraft suffered excess damage during the launch and reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, respectively. Teams are particularly concerned about the overly charred heat shield that protects Orion as it zooms 24,500 mph in 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit on its way back. The team has not determined yet whether the material needs to be redesigned.
“With Artemis I, we set out to prove that the hardware was ready,” Acaba said. “Artemis II will leverage that by putting humans in the loop, executing operations in the critical path, leading to new footprints on the lunar surface.”
Steve Gunn & David Moore – Reflections Vol.1: Let the Moon be a Planet
SpaceX’s Starship will carry an SUV-sized rover to the Moon in 2026
While its next-generation rocket has yet to fly, that’s not stopping SpaceX from booking Starship flights. On Friday, a startup named Astrolab revealed that it had recently signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s private space firm to reserve a spot on an uncrewed Starship cargo mission that could launch as early as mid-2026. “This is SpaceX’s first commercial cargo contract to the lunar surface,” Jaret Matthews, CEO of Astrolab, told The New York Times, adding his company was one of a few customers involved in the flight.
Astrolab is building a vehicle it hopes will one day carry equipment, supplies and people across the lunar surface. The Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover is about the size of a Jeep Wrangler, making it a bit bigger than NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars. It also features a robotic arm for assisting with cargo and can travel up to 15 miles per hour. Oh, and FLEX can carry up to two astronauts.
Once it lands on the Moon, Astrolab claims FLEX will become the largest rover to travel the lunar surface. Matthews told The Times Astrolab already has customers waiting to use the rover to carry cargo during the 2026 Starship mission. Looking further to the future, Matthews said FLEX could assist with building a permanent human presence on the Moon and beyond. “Ultimately our goal is to have a fleet of rovers both on the Moon and Mars,” he said. “And I really think I see these vehicles as the catalysts ultimately for the off-Earth economy.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spacexs-starship-will-carry-an-suv-sized-rover-to-the-moon-in-2026-213926510.html?src=rss
Watch Live as NASA Reveals the Artemis Astronauts Who Will Fly to the Moon
NASA’s Moon plans officially kicked off in November 2022, and the party is just getting started. The Orion capsule flew to the Moon and back as part of the Artemis 1 mission, but now the spacecraft is gearing up for its second lunar trip with a crew of astronauts on board.
Lockheed Martin and Nokia are bringing Earth communication devices to the Moon
While NASA is about to reveal the astronaut crew that will return to the Moon aboard the Artemis 2 mission, private companies are already aligning behind the US space agency to turn Earth’s only natural satellite into a new business frontier. Reliable communication is the number one requirement for future…
Nokia Is Sending 4G Internet to the Moon
Nokia announced it is sending a 4G internet service to the Moon during an upcoming space mission. The company says the technology will hopefully pave the way for more lunar discoveries and create opportunities for a human presence on the Moon and beyond.
New Lockheed Martin Company Wants to Build a Satellite Constellation Around the Moon
Denver-based company Lockheed Martin has announced the launch of a subsidiary for the purpose of setting up communication and navigation services around the Moon for future lunar missions.
Water trapped in tiny glass beads on the Moon could hydrate future settlements
China’s Chang’e 5 rover has found tiny glass beads containing water in an impact crater on the Moon. Samples collected from a 2020 mission found beads with water content as high as 2,000 parts per million (PPM). Given the prevalence of these glass spheres on the lunar surface, there may be enough to provide 71 trillion gallons of water.
Some beads formed when asteroids collided with the Moon millions of years ago, while others came from ancient volcanoes. Scientists believe the water originated from a chemical reaction when hydrogen ions emitted from the sun — transported to the lunar surface from solar winds — combined with oxygen atoms inside the beads. The water-filled beads are tiny, ranging from “tens of micrometers to a few millimeters.” Still, there are enough on the Moon’s surface to (theoretically) supply an estimated 270 trillion kilograms of water — enough to fill 100 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.
However, scientists haven’t yet figured out how to collect them, and they would need to heat them to around 212 degrees Fahrenheit to extract water. Still, they could be a resource for future lunar settlements, where astronauts could use water for drinking, bathing, cooking, cleaning and even producing rocket fuel.
Scientists believe other moons in our Solar System may have similar beads. “Our direct measurements of this surface reservoir of lunar water show that impact glass beads can store substantial quantities of solar wind-derived water on the moon and suggest that impact glass may be water reservoirs on other airless bodies,” the study’s authors wrote. “The presence of water, stored in impact glass beads, is consistent with the remote detection of water at lower-latitude regions of the Moon, Vesta and Mercury. Our findings indicate that the impact glasses on the surface of Solar System airless bodies are capable of storing solar wind-derived water and releasing it to space.”
The glass beads aren’t our first glimpse at water on the Moon. In 2009, NASA crashed a probe into the Cabeus crater that led to water detection; in 2018, NASA found direct evidence of ice deposits in the Moon’s permanently shadowed craters on its north and south poles. NASA and China / Russia plan to put lunar bases at the Moon’s South Pole within the next decade; the competing initiatives both hope to have inhabitable bases ready by the early-to-mid-2030s.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/water-trapped-in-tiny-glass-beads-on-the-moon-could-hydrate-future-settlements-200030344.html?src=rss
These Crypto Companies Want to ‘Commoditize’ the Moon
One company is calling on all crypto pirates to sail more than 200,000 miles to the lunar surface to recover a bitcoin booty left on the Moon. The advertised 62 bitcoin, with a stated worth of $1.5 million, will remain stranded on the lunar south pole after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket delivers it to space later this…