Astronauts are preparing to live and work on the Moon by the end of the decade. NASA official.
Howard Hu, head of the US agency’s Orion lunar spacecraft program, said humans could be active on the moon for “periods” by 2030, with rovers to support their habitats and work.
“Of course, there will be long-lived humans in this decade, depending on how long we stay on the surface. They will have habitats, they will have rovers on the ground,” he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg program on Sunday. “We will send people to the surface and they will live on the surface and do science,” he said.
Hu led NASA’s deep-space probe in February, and on Sunday he performed as the 98-meter (322-foot) Artemis rocket headed for the moon. the first uncrewed mission🇧🇷
A giant rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Wednesday after a series of delays due to technical glitches and hurricanes.
The spacecraft has three fully-fit mannequins that will record the stresses and strains of the Artemis 1 mission. The rocket is currently about 83,000 miles (134,000 km) from the Moon.
“This is our first step into long-term deep space exploration, not just for the United States, but for the world. “I think this is a historic day for NASA, but it’s also a historic day for all people who love human spaceflight and deep space exploration,” Hu said.
“We are going back to the moon. We are working on a sustainable program, and this is the vehicle that will bring us back to the moon.”
The spacecraft will fly within 60 miles of the moon and continue for another 40,000 miles before turning back and aiming to splash into the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11. The spacecraft will travel 1.3m miles on the 25-day mission, the farthest a human-made spacecraft has ever flown.
On re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, the spacecraft will travel at about 25,000 mph, bringing the temperature of the heat shield to about 2,800C (5,000F). It is expected to splash onto the coast of San Diego.
A successful mission would pave the way for subsequent flights of Artemis 2 and 3, both of which would send humans around the moon and back. The Artemis 3 mission, which won’t launch until 2026, is expected to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in December 1972. According to NASA’s plans, this mission will land the first woman on the moon. A visit after the landing of the first person of color on the surface of the moon.
Named after Apollo’s twin sister, the Artemis program also plans to build the Lunar Gateway, a space station where astronauts will live and work while orbiting the moon. “Going forward is really going to Mars,” Hu told the BBC. “It’s a much bigger step, a two-year journey, so it’s going to be really important to study beyond Earth orbit.”
