#nasa artemis program

Nasa has said it hopes to send astronauts on a ten day trip around the Moon as soon as February.

The US space agency had previously committed to launching no later than the end of April but said it aims to bring the mission forward.

It's been 50 years since any country has flown a crewed lunar mission. Nasa will send four astronauts there and back in ten days to test systems.

The Artemis II mission is the second launch of the Artemis programme, whose aim is to land astronauts and eventually establish a long-term presence on the lunar surface.

Lakiesha Hawkins, Nasa's acting deputy associate administrator said it would be an important momment in the human exploration of space.

"We together have a front row seat to history," she told a news conference this afternoon.

"The launch window could open as early as the fifth of February, but we want to emphasize that safety is our top priority."

Artemis Launch Director, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson explained that the powerful rocket system built to take the astronauts to the Moon, the Space Launch System (SLS) was "pretty much stacked and ready to go".

Eight minutes after launch the massive Core stage will separate from the second stage, called the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion System (ICPS), and the Orion crew capsule. Orion's solar arrays will unfurl and begin charging the spacecraft's batteries to provide power when it is not in direct sunlight.

Ninety minutes later ICPS fires its engines to raise the vehicle to a higher Earth orbit, and for the next 25 hours there will be a full systems check.

If everything is in order, Orion will separate from ICPS and there will be a form of "space ballet" between the two vehicles, more prosaically called the Proximity Operations Demonstration.

Astronauts will manually control Orion's manoeuvring thruster to dance toward and away from ICPS. This will be to rehearse docking procedures in order to link up with a landing vehicle for the eventual Moon landing.

Twenty-three hours later Orion's service module carries out a Translunar Injection (TLI) burn - a blast of thrust aiming it at the Moon - before Orion makes its four-day journey, taking the astronauts more than 230,000 miles from Earth.

During the journey the astronauts will be continue to carry out systems checks.

The crew will in some ways be human guinea pigs.

Experiments will monitor how their bodies are affected by space. Scientists will grow tissue samples from the astronauts' blood called organoids both before and after their journey.

The two sets of organoids will be compared to see how the astronauts' bodies have been affected by space, according to Dr Nicky Fox, Nasa's head of science.

"You may be wondering why we are doing all that when we have the actual astronauts, she told BBC News.

"We want to be able to study in depth the effect of the microgravity and the radiation on these samples. I'm certainly not going to dissect an astronaut! But I can dissect these little organoid samples and really look at the difference."

SpaceX’s latest test launch of its Starship mega-rocket ended in partial failure on Thursday as the upper stage exploded mid-air for the second consecutive time, moments after a successful booster recovery.A user on X shared a video of the explosion, stating, “Just saw Starship 8 blow up in the Bahamas.” The rocket lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at around 5:30 pm…

In the world of human space exploration, Boeing has stood as a big force, propelling advancements for over six decades. Now, with the NASA Artemis program, Boeing is set to make history by contributing to the landing of the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon. This ambitious initiative also marks a significant stride towards sustainable lunar exploration, covering more of the…

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#LockheedMartin completes assembly and testing of Orion Artemis I spacecraft. #NASAArtemis #NASAOrion

Lockheed Martin has completed assembly and testing of the Orion Artemis I spacecraft and has transferred possession to NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) team on Jan. 14. Assembled at Kennedy Space Center, the EGS team will then perform final preparations on the spacecraft for its mission to the Moon later this year. Orion is NASA’s new human-rated exploration-class spaceship that will take…