After more than 53 years, humans may finally return to the Moon this week
The mission will last more than nine days, from takeoff to landing. After separating from the SLS rocket, the Orion spacecraft will spend just over a day in a high-altitude elliptical orbit more than 40,000 miles from Earth. Astronauts and mission controllers in Houston will spend this time activating and testing the spacecraft, with a particular focus on Orion’s environmental control and life support systems, which were not part of an unpiloted Orion test flight four years ago.
Glover and Wiseman will take manual control of the spacecraft to evaluate Orion’s handling characteristics, commanding thrusters to guide the capsule to the upper stage of the SLS rocket to practice docking maneuvers on future Artemis missions. Assuming all goes well, Orion will fire its main engine for a translunar injection, or TLI, which will burn about 25 hours after the mission begins. This is the event that will send astronauts to the Moon.
This mission will not land. This will happen on a future Artemis mission, currently planned for Artemis IV, no earlier than 2028. NASA is working with SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop commercial human-oriented landers to carry astronauts from the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back. These landers, along with new lunar spacesuits, will not be ready for a landing mission next year, as NASA officials had hoped.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced last week a shakeup of the Artemis program, shifting from building a space station in orbit around the Moon to building a base on the lunar surface. The program changes also included replanning the next Artemis mission, Artemis III, from a single-flight landing mission to dock an Orion crew capsule with one or two commercial landers closer to Earth.
This change will increase the chances of launching Artemis III next year. Sending SpaceX or Blue Origin landers to the Moon will require mastery of in-orbit refueling, and neither company has yet demonstrated the capability. Refueling is not required for a low Earth orbit test mission on Artemis III.
“Over the last 10 weeks, the agency has been preparing a crewed lunar test vehicle and also restructuring the program it belongs to,” Amit said. Kshatriya, associate administrator of NASA. “This was done deliberately. A team that understands the campaign has a greater purpose, a workforce that sees the path ahead at a higher level. This escape and the future reinforce each other. This is how Apollo worked, and this is how we will work.
“Behind this flight is a campaign, landings, a moon base, nuclear propulsion in deep space. It begins, and does not end, with what happens Wednesday evening,” » said Kshatriya.
