What is NASA’s Artemis I Mission?

What is NASA’s Artemis I Mission?

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) rolled out its Artemis I moon mission to the launchpad for testing at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, United States.

ARTEMIS:

• NASA’s Artemis mission is touted as the next generation of lunar exploration, and is named after the twin sister of Apollo from Greek mythology.
• Artemis I is the first of NASA’s deep space exploration systems.
• It is an uncrewed space mission where the spacecraft will launch on SLS — the most powerful rocket in the world.
• The Orion spacecraft is going to remain in space without docking to a space station, longer than any ship for astronauts has ever done before.
• The SLS rocket has been designed for space missions beyond the low-earth orbit and can carry crew or cargo to the moon and beyond.
• With the Artemis Mission, NASA aims to land humans on the moon by 2024, and it also plans to land the first woman and first person of colour on the moon.
• NASA will establish an Artemis Base Camp on the surface and a gateway in the lunar orbit to aid exploration by robots and astronauts.

What is the mission trajectory?

• SLS and Orion under Artemis I will be launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, U.S. in the summer of 2022.
• On its way to the moon, Orion will be propelled by a service module provided by the European Space Agency (ESA).
• The spacecraft will communicate with the control centre back on Earth through the deep-space network.
• It will fly around 100 km above the surface of the moon and use its gravitational pull to propel Orion into an opposite deep orbit around 70,000 km from the moon, where it will stay for approximately six days.

READ MORE: Daily Prelims Booster

READ MORE: Daily News Analysis