\n
\n<\/p>\n
Taking advantage of a window of opportunity, this
\nautumn NASA launched Artemis 1-the first in a series of missions of the
\nAmerican Space Agency to return humans to the Moon. The uncrewed flight took
\nplace on November 16, when NASA’s giant rocket SLS (Space Launch System)
\nlaunched the Orion capsule, after a number of failed attempts. On November 21, after traveling nearly 400,000 km, the
\ncapsule reached 128 km from the Moon surface. Orion returned to Earth, landing
\noff the Mexican island of Guadalupe. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Artemis targeted several goals: to test Orion’s
\ncapacity to return safely from the Moon and to operate in deep space, where
\ntemperatures are considerably lower than on Earth’s orbit, and to successfully retrieve
\nthe rocket. The writer and science journalist Alexandru
\nMironov spoke to Radio Romania about the importance of this mission: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Alexandru Mironov: Half a century after the last step taken there, mankind once again
\nattempts to conquer the Moon. The Artemis programme is this attempt of
\nreassuring ourselves that we are able to launch a spacecraft strong enough to complete
\nthe Earth-Moon route. The spacecraft left the Earth, orbited it twice to build
\nspeed and then left, reached the Moon orbit and went around it with high-tech
\nmannequins on board outfitted with all kinds of sensors. Twenty-six days later,
\nit returned from this journey.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The second stage of the Artemis
\nprogramme, already in preparation with NASA, will also have a human crew:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Alexandru Mironov: Artemis 2 will take place next year. It will
\ncover the exact route of Artemis 1 and will have 4 people on board, including a
\nwoman. They will orbit the Moon-and when I speak about that I always imagine
\nthe frustration they will feel when going around the Moon, two steps from it,
\nseeing the Earth rising behind it but not being allowed to set foot on the Moon
\nitself. This is the second stage of the planetary project to return to the
\nMoon. The 3rd stage should take place in two years’ time, I believe
\nit will only be three years from now, when we will finally touch the Moon. The verb
\nto Moon will then become part of humans’ vocabulary. Why will this happen? Because
\nwe are no longer going there for an experiment, as it happened with the Apollo programme.
\nInstead, we are going to conquer the Moon, in the sense of using the countless
\nminerals that we need, maybe build houses in the Moon grottos, maybe use the
\nwater in the glaciers under the Moon’s surface. So a lot of elements encourage
\nus to say that mankind will gain a lot from this. In fact, there will be a
\ngateway, a satellite that I see as some sort of planetary building site, because
\nthis is where spaceships will be built that will require very little energy to
\nlaunch to Mars, our next step. Orion, which completed this route, launched from
\na giant rocket. The SLS belongs to NASA, and the next stage will also use NASA
\nspacecraft, but then the government will work with private operators, like Elon
\nMusk, and we will very likely see a regular commute to and from the Moon.
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Orion had been in space before, in 2014, launched from
\na Delta IV rocket. At that time, it orbited the Earth twice, most importantly
\nin order to test the heat shield’s performance at re-entry. This time around,
\nthe temperature was a lot higher, with the capsule reaching a speed several
\ntimes the speed of sound and re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere at 40,000 km per hour. Special attention was again paid
\nto Orion’s heat shield, which had to withstand temperatures of 2,800 degrees
\nCelsius, nearly half of the temperature on the Sun’s surface.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Alexandru Mironov: Because of air friction, the temperature
\nreaches extremely high levels. There are special materials designed for this. Experts
\nare trying to solve problems that previous spacecraft failed to solve, hence
\nthe two major accidents. But I believe that gradually, the NASA personnel,
\nastrophysicists and engineers will get on top of this. We are on the right
\npath, to the Moon and beyond. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Upon re-entry, high-performance
\ncameras managed to catch Orion, and the spectacular image of its 11
\nparachutes opening gradually proved that it all had gone according to plan. The
\nmission also marked a record: on November 28, Orion moved beyond the distance
\ntravelled in 1970 by Apollo 13, and reached 430,000 km, the most distant point
\never reached by a spacecraft able to carry humans on board. (AMP)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This autumn NASA launched Artemis 1, a first mission to return humans to the Moon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":156702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43939],"tags":[44674,31488,36145,44675,44676,44673],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-156798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-future-starts-today","tag-artemis","tag-mission","tag-nasa","tag-orion","tag-sls","tag-spacecraft"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n