 "A ski lift at the Kalavrita ski centre on Mount Helmos is silhouetted as the moon rises near the town of Kalavrita, Greece. Reuters")
Humanity is set to dive into a ‘future stone age’ this decade, using the moon for exploration and extracting materials that would power the new space industrial age and also capture the planetary real estate beyond the moon. The Artemis programme is designed to enable human missions to revisit the moon, establish permanent presence there, and then use the moon as a base to launch missions to other planets.
NASA’s Artemis campaign entails exploring the moon for scientific discovery, technology advancement, and to learn how to live and work on another world as we prepare for human missions to Mars and beyond. Nations signatory to the Artemis accords shall participate and enable collaboration with commercial and international partners for establishing the first long-term human presence on the moon. By 2026, NASA is planning to land the first woman and first person of colour on the moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. NASA is not simply aiming to repeat the feats of the Apollo missions with Artemis, its goal is also to go to the moon “and live there”.
So far 43 countries have signed the accords. India became the 27th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, demonstrating its commitment to sustainable and transparent space activity. NASA, in coordination with the US Department of State, established the Artemis Accords in 2020.
The Artemis Accords are grounded in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST). Both Russia and China have declined to be a formal part of the Accords considering that these are too US-centric and that it overrides the OST. China has developed a credible space programme establishing its own space station in 2022 called Tiangong. India is not far behind and is preparing to launch Gaganyaan this year which would graduate to a manned space flight and ultimately set up the Indian Orbital Space Station by 2035, officially called, Bharatiya Antariksha Station or the ‘Indian Space Station’. Artemis would be a step ahead by creating a space lab orbiting the moon called the gateway.
Currently, the industrial superpowers depend on rare earth materials. The next source of empowerment would come from the rare planetary materials — moon being the first in the line. The earth is probably becoming a smaller place for humanity as it approaches a mark of nine billion in population. Humans are not only growing in numbers but also in greed. They have empowered the machine to achieve greater feats. The rare earth materials have been the actual real estate that makes machines of the future. The new fodder to industrial machines is now the future rare planetary materials. Many countries have the incentive to go after these materials, especially those that don’t want to rely on China, which currently holds a third of the world’s known reserves of rare earth.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe discovery of water on the moon and potential deposits of rare minerals hold promise for both scientific and economic exploration and exploitation. It is expected to find deposits of metal oxides in some of the large craters of the moon.
The moon also contains reserves of silicon, titanium, rare earth metals and aluminium. Countries are also after helium-3 that can be used to create nuclear fusion — the Holy Grail of energy production — as it would produce higher amounts of energy than nuclear fission but is much less radioactive. On Earth only about 0.0001 per cent of helium is helium-3, but on the moon there may be over a million tonnes of it. Helium-3’s power, if and when harnessed, will “solve humanity’s energy demand for around 10,000 years”. After exploiting the materials on the moon, the mission would be to use the moon as a launch pad to mine minerals from the other planets, starting with Mars.
The Artemis programme is divided in five distinct phases. Artemis I was completed in 2022 which took an un-crewed flight test of the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft into the Lunar orbit. Artemis 1 successfully proved that the SLS, Orion and the systems on Earth for communications and recovery are suitable to fly real astronauts to the moon and back.
Artemis II shall be launched by September next year, as the first crewed flight test of SLS and the Orion spacecraft beyond the moon. Artemis III is planned a year later (September 2026) and will send the first humans to explore the region near the lunar South Pole where India’s Chandrayaan 3 has already collected certain credible data. Artemis III aims to land the first female astronaut and first astronaut of colour on the lunar surface. They will spend a week on the moon performing scientific studies, before returning to the earth.
By 2027, Artemis IV shall debut humanity’s first lunar space station, a larger, more powerful version of the SLS rocket, and new mobile launcher. This will deliver a core part of a new lunar space station (named ‘Gateway’) into orbit around the moon, and land another two astronauts on the Moon’s surface. Artemis V is likely to be completed by 2029, adding another important module to Gateway and involve a third crewed lunar landing to undertake further surface science.
NASA’s long-term goals are even more ambitious: Using the technology and research developed during the Artemis flights, to launch a future crewed mission to Mars. This ‘Moon to Mars’ plan involves building a new space station in lunar orbit and, eventually, establishing a habitable moon base.
Unlike the International Space Station (ISS), the Gateway shall be a flexible platform for missions to the moon and beyond. It won’t be permanently occupied, but will serve as a platform where astronauts can live and undertake research for short periods. It will also be able to continue scientific research even between human lunar missions. Gateway is a small space station that, once built, will orbit the moon. The Orion module will dock with Gateway, and from there the astronauts will transfer into the lunar landing module. Gateway modules shall comprise a habitation and Logistic Outpost to be established by 2027, International habitation module for living and a module for communication and equipment will be established by 2029.
The Human Landing System will take cargo and humans from Gateway to the Moon’s surface. The lander will have the potential to increase the number of crew who can go down to the moon, and enable a longer stay.
The privatisation of space has made private companies aspirational to explore and, if opportunity presents, to own the planetary real estates. The Artemis programme is one of NASA’s first large-scale collaborations with commercial companies such as SpaceX and Boeing. While the journey to the moon takes three days, reaching Mars is a far longer and more complicated goal. NASA sees Artemis as laying the foundation for both international space agencies and private companies to build a lunar settlement and economy, and from there eventually send humans to Mars.
The Artemis Accords also mark a new chapter in the collaboration between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and NASA. One of the most exciting outcomes of this collaboration is the proposed joint mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024. This mission, in a way, also aligns with India’s ambitious Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme, which aims to send Indian astronauts into space. The collaboration for the ISS mission could potentially see Indian astronauts being part of an international crew aboard the ISS. It signifies a significant step in India’s space exploration journey, as it marks the country’s first participation in manned missions to the space station.
Meanwhile, China is also working on a similar programme for lunar mining and resource utilisation. It intends to soon carry out technical verifications for in-situ lunar ice mining, hydrogen-oxygen conversion, oxygen production, and other technologies. The Chinese landing of Yatu 2 on the other side of the moon is a technological demonstration. In the next two decades China plans to take a lead in lunar reserve utilisation through mega applications in the field of energy acquisition and utilisation, mineral mining and refining, lunar infrastructure construction, operation, and maintenance.
The Artemis programme has plans for lunar resource utilisation, harnessing the surface power, carry out evacuation and construction of habitat at industrial scale and build cross-cutting capabilities. The programme is aimed to achieve significant economic returns from certain lunar resource utilisation activities. The moon becomes a major outpost for deep space exploration, besides enabling the construction of a Mars scientific research station and the expansion of Mars resource utilisation activities. It is a matter of debate if and when the US, China and Russia join the moon mission.
The principles set out in these Accords are intended to apply to civil space activities conducted by the civil space agencies of each signatory. These activities may take place on the moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids, including their surfaces and sub surfaces, as well as in orbit of the Moon or Mars, in the Lagrangian points for the Earth-Moon system, and in transit between these celestial bodies and locations. The signatories intend to implement the principles set out in these Accords through their own activities by taking, as appropriate, measures such as mission planning and contractual mechanisms with entities acting on their behalf.
According to the declarations, the signatories of Artemis reaffirm their commitment to the OST, including those provisions relating to due regard and harmful interference. The signatories affirm that the exploration and use of outer space should be conducted with due consideration to the United Nations Guidelines for the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities adopted by the UN-Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in 2019, with appropriate changes to reflect the nature of operations beyond the low-earth orbit.
In the next 10 years the complexion of human thought would change when the moon would also act as an electronic transponder to the earth — ‘the mother of all satellites’. Gradually and incrementally, there would be many powerful telescopes and electronic beams directed towards the earth. The moon shall soon become a surface of contest in the new superpower rivalry. It is with great hope that lawmakers on the earth have to decide on the applicability of their laws on the other planet.
Lt Gen (Dr) PJS Pannu is a former Deputy Chief Integrated Defence Staff. He was responsible for raising the Defence Space Agency, Defence Cyber Agency and the armed forces’ Special Forces Division. He has done PhD in ‘Indigenisation of Defence Industry’. He is a Senior Advisor to Satcom Industries Association (India). He has conducted two space-based Industrial wargames in the last two years. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.