Context: NASA reveals its plan for ‘Artemis Base Camp’ on the MOON that will become home to four astronauts in 2024
- NASA mission to land first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024.
- It will collaborate with our commercial and international partners to establish sustainable missions by 2028
- This mission would be the first step to taking the next giant leap – sending astronauts to Mars.
- NASA’s powerful new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), will send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft nearly a quarter million miles from Earth to lunar orbit.
- Astronauts will dock Orion at the Gateway and transfer to a human landing system for expeditions to the surface of the Moon. They will return to the orbital outpost to board Orion again before returning safely to Earth.
- Astronauts will be sent to new locations, starting with the lunar South Pole.
Objectives
- Find and use water and other critical resources needed for long-term exploration
- Investigate the Moon’s mysteries and learn more about earth and the universe
- Learn how to live and operate on the surface of another celestial body where astronauts are just three days from home
- Prove the technologies needed before sending astronauts on missions to Mars, which can take up to three years roundtrip
Other
- Artemis 1 will be an uncrewed flight that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration further
- The last manned Moon landing happened in 1972, as part of the Apollo 17 mission.
- There have only been six times that astronauts have walked on the Moon, all of which were carried out by NASA as part of its Apollo program.
