LOOKING FOR NEW HORIZONS BEYOND THE MOON
LOOKING FOR NEW
HORIZONS BEYOND THE MOON
Nikunja BIhari Sahu
As the world's most powerful ‘Space Launch System' rocket carrying atop the Orion capsule roared off the launch pad of Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on 1st April 2026 on its way to the Moon, the moon race was back again. NASA is going to resume from where it had left in 1972 which was the last crewed lunar mission with Apollo 17 spacecraft. With its ambitious Artemis program, NASA aims not just for a symbolic return to our closest celestial neighbour with flags and footprints, but a long term goal to explore deep space in a way that has never happened before.
Artemis II is the first crewed mission of
the Orion spacecraft beyond the limits
of low earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission. It carried four astronauts
including a woman. The mission is expected to set several human space flight records including the longest distance
travelled from the Earth (406,773 km),
farthest distance travelled beyond the Moon (about 7,600 km) and atmospheric
reentry speed of about 40,000 km/h. The crew will enter into a lunar flyby
path without landing on the Moon and
will be brought back to the Earth in atmospheric reentry and splash down in the
sea. Its predecessor Artemis 1 was launched on November 16, 2022 that orbited
the Moon at a distance about 70,000 km from its surface on a 25.5-days flight.
It tested the safety and performance of
the uncrewed Orion spacecraft in deep space.
The most crucial Artemis-4 mission of 2028 will actually land astronauts on the
Moon including a woman before returning to the Earth. As a part of
the mission, two astronauts would spend almost a week in the Moon’s south polar
region where frozen water possibly
exists in permanently shadowed craters. This represents a significant departure
from the Apollo missions in which astronauts explored the equatorial regions of
the Moon. The other successive missions of the series will be utilized to build
up a base camp on the Moon's surface and a Moon Gateway in the lunar orbit that
will help landing a number of hardwares on the moon. This would include
humanoids and robots for extensive study by the future astronauts taking
advantage of its elaborate infrastructural buildup on the Moon. The gateway would
also provide an easy transit platform for the astronauts to step on the Moon.
The mission is named after Artemis, the
mythological Greek goddess of the Moon and the twin sister of Apollo (after
whom NASA’s first lunar mission was named). The crewed capsule Orion owes its
name to one of the prominent constellations of the night sky who, in classical mythology, was the
hunting companion of Artemis.
The implications of the Artemis mission are
far-reaching. Most importantly, the mission will be a different one from the
earlier Apollo program as, through this,
NASA will be able to establish a
permanent and sustainable presence on the Moon to prepare onward missions to
Mars and beyond. Some of these missions
will be manned in nature which had not been accomplished before. While
the crew of the last Apollo-17 mission spent only 3 days on the Moon, Artemis
plans to extend the trip for weeks or possibly for months. Scientifically, the program allows for strategic resource
mapping and the potential exploitation of Moon’s treasure trove of minerals.
Economically, it fosters a new era of global alliances and private partnership
with space industry leaders like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Boeing.
The mission is more than a journey;
it is a quest to unravel the secrets of nature and open up new worlds that
would someday become the cradle for
humanity’s future generations. Our sphere of living should be extended further
beyond the earth’s domain to ensure the resilience and continuity of the human
race in the event of a catastrophe. As we gaze
upward, we should recognize that the Moon is no longer our ultimate
destination, but a shore from which we set sail into the infinite cosmos of
distant stars. Artemis' series of missions promises to offer such a new
horizon by materializing this distant human goal!
Education Officer
Regional Science Centre
Bhubaneswar
Phone : 8018708858
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