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NASA has not yet launched the rocket that would carry astronauts to the Moon and has not yet selected the crew that would explore the lunar surface as part of its Artemis program. But he has already identified where on the Moon the astronauts would land.
The space agency announced Friday that it has selected 13 possible regions at the moon’s south pole, where ice is found in permanently shadowed craters and is far from the territory explored by Neil Armstrong and the other Apollo astronauts.
The first human mission to land on the moon in about 50 years is scheduled for 2025, and would be the first manned lunar landing since the last of the Apollo missions in 1972. NASA has promised to return humans to the lunar surface — a bold plan born during the Trump administration that has been embraced by the Biden White House.
Although it has suffered some setbacks and delays, the program is the first human deep space exploration program since Apollo to survive successive administrations. But unlike Apollo, Artemis is designed to create a permanent presence on and around the Moon. And NASA has pushed forward with a sense of urgency as China also aims to send astronauts to the moon.
In a briefing Friday, NASA officials said they chose the landing sites using data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a robotic spacecraft that has been mapping the lunar surface since 2009, as well as other lunar studies .
“Selecting these regions means we’re one giant step closer to returning humans to the moon for the first time since Apollo,” said Mark Kirasich, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for the development division. the Artemis campaign, in a statement. “When we do, it will be unlike any mission that has come before, as astronauts venture into dark areas previously unexplored by humans and lay the groundwork for future long-term stays.”
NASA had already announced that it would return to the lunar south pole. But the specific sites, all within a cluster of six degrees of latitude from the South Pole, were chosen, NASA said, because they provide safe landing points close enough to regions in permanent shadow to allow the crew take a moonwalk as part of his six-and-a-half-day stay on the moon.
This, NASA said, would allow astronauts to “collect samples and conduct scientific analysis in an uncompromised area, providing important information about the depth, distribution and composition of water ice that was confirmed at the Moon’s south pole.”
Water is important for sustaining human life, but also because its components—hydrogen and oxygen—can be used as rocket propellants.
The Apollo missions went to the equatorial regions of the Moon, where there are long stretches of daylight, for up to two weeks at a time. The South Pole, on the other hand, can get only a few days of light, making missions more difficult and limiting the windows of when NASA can launch.
“It’s a long way from the Apollo sites,” said Sarah Noble, Artemis’s lunar science manager. “Now we’re going to a completely different place.”
The announcement comes as NASA prepares for the first of its Artemis missions, now scheduled for August 29. That flight, known as Artemis I, would mark the first launch of NASA’s massive Space Launch System rocket that would send the Orion crew capsule, without any astronauts aboard, into orbit around the Moon for a 42-day mission .
Earlier this week, the space agency rolled the rocket and spacecraft into pad 39B at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, and officials say everything remains on track for a two-hour launch window that opens at 8:33 am NASA has set aside backup launch dates. for September 2 and 5 if there is a delay.
One of the main goals of the flight is to test Orion’s heat shield, said Mike Sarafin, NASA’s Artemis mission manager. The heat shield is intended to protect Orion and the future crew from the extreme temperatures it will encounter when it enters Earth’s atmosphere at 24,500 mph, or Mach 32.
The mission would be followed by a flight with four astronauts who would orbit the moon, but not land, as soon as 2024. A human landing, the first since the last of the Apollo missions in 1972, is now tentatively planned for 2025.
That mission depends on a number of factors, including the development of SpaceX’s Starship rocket and spacecraft, which would rendezvous with Orion in lunar orbit and then ferry astronauts there from the Moon’s surface.
“It feels like we’re on a roller coaster that’s about to go over the top of the biggest hill,” Jacob Bleacher, NASA’s chief exploration scientist, told reporters Friday. “Fasten your seatbelts, everyone, we’re going for a ride on the moon.”