To the Moon! Why NASA's Artemis mission is the dawn of a new space age

Humanity is going back to the Moon. And if all goes well, Mars beckons.

That’s the plan NASA has charted with its most powerful rocket to date set to launch on Monday – fifty years after the last Apollo mission.

The space programme Artemis will launch an uncrewed 322-foot  Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 6 pm IST.

NASA said there is an 80 per cent chance of acceptable weather for a lift-off on time at the beginning of a launch window lasting two hours.

Let’s take a closer look:

Why the name Artemis?

Like Apollo, the name is NASA giving a nod to Greek Mythology. Artemis was Apollo’s twin and a goddess connected to the Moon.

Tens of thousands including Vice-President Kamala Harris are on hand along the beaches of Florida to watch this launch that’s been decades in the making.

The event is slated to be spectacular with the SLS pulling 39.1 meganewtons (8.8 million pounds) of thrust off the pad, as per BBC.

That’s close to 15 per cent more than the Saturn V rockets that sent the Apollo astronauts on their way to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s.

The SLS’s engines could power the equivalent of almost 60 Concorde supersonic jets on take-off, as per the report.

Hotels around Cape Canaveral are booked solid with between 100,000 and 200,000 spectators expected to attend the launch.

The massive orange-and-white rocket has been sitting on the space centre’s Launch Complex 39B for a week.

Its fuel tanks were filled overnight Sunday into Monday with more than three million litres of liquid hydrogen and oxygen.

What is the goal?

The goal of the flight, named Artemis I, is to test the SLS and the Orion crew capsule that sits atop the rocket.

The Orion capsule is named after the constellation, among the night sky’s brightest.

The capsule will orbit the Moon to see if the vessel is safe for people in the near future. At some point Artemis will see a woman and a person of colour walk on the Moon for the first time.

Twelve men walked the surface of the Moon between 1969 and 1972.

The Orion capsule will orbit around the Moon, coming within 100 kilometres at its closest approach and then firing its engines to get to a distance 40,000 miles beyond, a record for a spacecraft rated to carry humans.

It will deploy small satellites to study the lunar surface.

Cameras will capture every moment of the 42-day trip and include a selfie of the spacecraft with the Moon and Earth in the background.

One of the primary objectives of the mission is to test the capsule’s heat shield, which at 16 feet in diameter is the largest ever built.

On its return to the Earth’s atmosphere, the heat shield will have to withstand a speed of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 2,760 degrees Celsius.

That’s half as hot as the Sun.

“Even the reinforced carbon-carbon that protected the shuttle was only good for around 1,600 degrees Celsius,” Mike Hawes, the Orion programme manager at aerospace manufacturer Lockheed Martin, told BBC.

“Now, we’re coming in at more than 2,200 degrees Celsius. We’ve gone back to the Apollo ablative material called Avcoat. It’s in blocks with a gap filler, and testing that is a high priority.”

This is also a shining moment for the European Space Agency, which provided the service module, the rear section that pushes the capsule through space, for Orion, as per BBC.

Europe hopes this will lead to its nationals being included in future journeys to the Moon.

Passengers on board

As per The Guardian, the ‘passengers’ on board will be mannequins Moonikin Campos (named after NASA engineer Arturo Campos, who helped save Apollo 13 from disaster by working out how to jury rig its partly crippled electrical system to bring the astronauts home) as well as Helga and Zohar  (mannequins made of material simulating human tissue – heads and female torsos but limbless).

As per Indiatimes, the mannequins will be fitted with radiation measuring sensors.

The rocket will also carry slivers of moon rocks collected by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969 on Apollo 11, and a bolt from one of their rocket engines, salvaged from the sea a decade ago.

Ten tiny cubesats to test technologies for deep space exploration will also be aboard, as per Indiatimes. Some will help with the Artemis mission while one called NEA Scout will use a solar sail to go look for a small asteroid.

Plush toys of Snoopy and Shaun The Sheep, recognising the involvement of the European Space Agency will also be along for the ride, as per the report.

Their purpose? To float and around and demonstrate zero gravity.

While Aldrin isn’t attending the launch, Apollo 7’s Walter Cunningham, Apollo 10’s Tom Stafford and Apollo 17’s Harrison Schmitt, the next-to-last man to walk on the moon, will be present, as per The Guardian.

Life on the Moon

“What we are starting with the launch Monday is not a near term sprint, but a long term marathon to bring the solar system and beyond into our sphere,” said Bhavya Lal, NASA associate administrator for technology, policy, and strategy.

“Everything we’re doing with this Artemis I flight, we’re looking at through the lens of what can we prove out and what can we demonstrate that will buy down risk for the Artemis II crewed mission,”  NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik told BBC.

The next mission, Artemis II, will take astronauts into orbit around the Moon without landing on its surface.

The crew of Artemis III is to land on the Moon in 2025 at the earliest.

While the Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon were exclusively white men, the Artemis programme plans to include the first woman and person of colour.

And since humans have already visited the Moon, Artemis has its sights set on another lofty goal – an eventual crewed mission to Mars.

The Artemis programme’s aim is to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface.

Gateway would serve as a staging and refuelling station for a voyage to Mars that would take a minimum of several months.

A risky proposition

Besides the weather, any kind of technical snafu could delay the lift-off at the last minute, NASA officials have said, stressing that this is a test flight.

If the rocket is unable to take off on Monday, 2 and 5 September have been pencilled in as alternative flight dates.

DNA quoted Jim Free, NASA’s assistant administrator for exploration systems development, as saying at a 22 August news conference, “The test fight itself carries inherent risk”.

A complete failure would be devastating for a programme that is costing $4.1 billion per launch and is already running years behind schedule.

“This mission goes with a lot of hopes and dreams of a lot of people. And we now are the Artemis generation,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Saturday.

With inputs from agencies

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