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Watch in 4K All the Details of the First Artemis Mission to the Moon

Since it was revitalized by the exuberance of private space companies, the American Space agency has become closer to the public than it ever was. NASA now shares, details and explains its technology and programs like never before, shedding light on things that until not long ago were carefully guarded secrets.
Earthlings going to the Moon once again 17 photos
Photo: NASA/Youtube
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For the mid-term, the agency most important program is Artemis. It is the one that will bring humans back to the Moon after half of century, but it is not a goal in itself. It is the means for humanity to touch down for the first time on another planet sometime in the future.

Artemis is the stepping stone to Mars, the first move in the realization of a centuries-old dream of exploring first hand the surface of Mars.

The first Artemis mission will depart for the Moon in 2024, and this week NASA released a very detailed video explaining the hows and whys of the mission. You can see it in glorious five minutes of 4K video below this article.

As already announced, the Artemis missions will rely on the Space Launch System rocket (SLS) and the Orion capsule. The rocket itself is the most powerful ever built, dwarfing even today’s champion, Apollo’s Saturn V.

The four astronauts of each mission will be housed in the Orion, itself perched on top of the SLS, when the engines ignite. Two minutes after launch, the lateral solid boosters detach, followed six minutes later by the core stage. Once that move is completed, the capsule is in a so-called parking orbit around the Earth.

There, astronauts will configure the spacecraft and check its systems before giving it a nudge in the general direction of the Moon. We say general direction because the Orion will not be aimed directly at it, but at a point where the Moon would be about three days later. That’s how long the trip there should last.

Once at the destination, Orion will not begin descent preparations, as Apollo did. Instead, the capsule would dock with the lunar space station Gateway, that should begin construction the coming decade. The capsule would dock, and the astronauts selected to step on the surface of the Moon would go down in a separate lander.

Unlike the Apollo missions, the people of Artemis will have all the tools they need already on site. Rovers, experiments, human rated systems would already be there, carried by commercial partners in advance starting as soon as 2020.

Once on the surface, astronauts will begin doing what they were sent there to do. And they will never stop, this time, as the existence of a space station in orbit and current NASA plans would allow for experiments to be conducted round the clock, for as long as there are funds.

Below is the NASA-released 4K video titled How We Are Going to the Moon:

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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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