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| Artemis 1 |
This very hot summer of 2022 brought us not only sleepless nights, but also a beautiful and now unexpected news: at the end of August, we left for the moon! Just when hope seemed bleak, the "Artemis Eye" mission finally got the final green light from NASA. The Artemis program is essentially the first, real project aimed at returning humans to lunar soil and, more importantly, creating a sustainable and long-lasting human presence there. All this sounds almost like science fiction, but in reality, it is not possible; And the program, despite delays and problems that cooled enthusiasm, seems to have made much ground. Artemis is the first project to involve every possible space entity, including private and commercial. All this aimed not only to conquer the moon, but also to pave the way for the Mars mission.
Going to Mars, you know, is a much more complicated task than returning to our natural satellite; A lunar recovery would therefore be a great way to train for a long journey to the Red Planet; At this time a journey would be completed via the same rocket vector that heated the engine for the Moon. Small steps, which may have happened for Apollo in the past, will become giant leaps for humanity, and right now we have to make ourselves enough.
The launch that will mark the beginning of this new and incredible adventure is expected in a few days, but the roadmap is long and full of steps, and it's worth analyzing more closely when the Space Launch System lifts off from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39B, right from December 19, 1972. 18150 days would pass, which saw the return to Earth of Apollo 17, the sixth and final mission to explore the lunar soil. At that time we naively thought that, after taking the first step, we would soon return to the moon and we would soon colonize it.
Exactly 50 years have passed and since then we have not only touched the moon, we have never even reached its orbit. Without automatic probe. Well, in a few days, after years of hassles, delays and tribulations of all kinds, Artemis I, the first of three missions that will bring more men and women to set foot in our satellite's regolith once again by 2025.
Finally launched. The exact day should be next August 29, or a little later, but for now we're sure we're on the home stretch: the mission that seems destined to open the door to human exploration of the solar system will soon begin.
In addition to being the first mission of the Artemis program, it will also be the first flight for both the Orion capsule and the Space Launch System heavy launch vehicle. Bad choice, incidentally, to name the carrier rocket that will take us back to the moon after a nameless one! do you agree A journey to the moon is surely the most extreme journey ever undertaken by a human being.
And it's incredible to think how Apollo generation astronauts were able to make it into spaceships with computers that had the computing power of an old cell phone yet, despite the technological limitations of the time, those men were able to prove the journey was feasible. Many thought it impossible.
Today, more than fifty years later, we prepare to make this incredible crossing again with Artemis 1, an initial launch that will primarily serve to demonstrate the launcher's ability to safely get to and from the Moon, even dropping small cubesats for scientific purposes. It will also be important to test the behavior of the new Orion command module in lunar orbit, one of the flagships of the program, which promises great autonomy and structural integrity even in emergency situations, able to ensure the survival of its passengers (it is designed to carry four astronauts at a time).
In critical situations, until safe landing. In contrast, the service module, which will provide propulsion, electrical power, temperature control and life support to the crew module, was developed by the European Space Agency.
Due to the need to properly test these resources again, Artemis 1 will not carry any astronauts. As a result, life support, displays, and control instrumentation were removed from the capsule. In its place are sensors and scientific instruments capable of detecting every single parameter inside the capsule, such as radiation levels, pressure and temperature. On board, however, will be dummies, on which sensors are placed to monitor the radiation levels they will experience.
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| Commander Moonikin Campos |
The name chosen for the main mannequin Commander Munikin Campos pays tribute to the famous engineer of the Apollo 13 mission, who played a key role in bringing astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Sweigert and Fred Hayes safely back to Earth after the explosion. The service module not only hampered the lunar landing but also put pressure on normal re-entry.
Munikin Campos will wear the same spacesuits used by astronauts and will be equipped with an array of sensors that can measure several useful parameters, such as the acceleration values and vibrations that the crew members will be subjected to during the various stages of the journey, and radiation levels.
Campos will not be alone; He will be joined by Zolgar and Helga, two human torsos commonly used for ballistic trauma simulations. Hey guys, just a moment before we continue... don't forget to join the Insane Curiosity channel... click the bell, you'll help us always create high quality products! The mission is expected to last about a month and a half, but the exact number of days will depend on the actual launch date; Here's how: The August 29 launch begins with a two-hour launch window at 12:33 UT (Greenwich Mean Time). Mission Duration: 42 days.
Orion Splashdown: October 10. Launched on September 2. The two-hour launch window begins at 16:48 UT. Mission Duration: 39 days. Orion Splashdown: Oct. 11. 5 September launch. A 90-minute launch window begins at 21:12 UT. Mission Duration: 42 days. Orion Splashdown: October 17. If it cannot be launched by this date, the next useful window will not open until the end of September. But some may ask: Why not try again the next day? The fact is that if Artemis 1 is launched on August 30 or any day other than the chosen one, the Orion spacecraft will find itself flying in the shadow of the Earth.
This will prevent its solar panels from being powered and functional. Orion will be able to fly in full sunlight only if it departs on the indicated date. Flight Plan The Space Launch System rocket is designed for crew or cargo carrying missions to and from the Moon and will generate 4 million kilograms of thrust during liftoff and ascent to carry a 2,700-tonne vehicle into orbit. Lifted by a pair of boosters and four engines, the rocket will reach its maximum thrust in ninety seconds.
After the booster, service module panel and launch abort system are thrown overboard, the main stage engines will shut down and the main stage will separate from the spacecraft, which includes the Orion capsule, the European Space Agency-supplied service module, and the rocket's second stage, called an interim cryogenic. Propulsion stage. The ESA module, we recall, is placed under the actual capsule and will remain on and with the Moon. Only this module will be undocked before Orion returns to Earth.
Inside is the capsule's main engine, gas and propellant tanks, and various secondary engines. The Space Launch System will carry the Orion capsule with the second stage and the ESA module into a parking orbit at an altitude of about 200 km. After a few rotations around Earth, the solar panels will be deployed at the appropriate time and then the second stage engines will be fired, which will increase the speed enough to allow the spacecraft to leave the parking orbit.
This technique is called Transfer Lunar Injection and will get the spacecraft on course for the Moon. This will be one of the most important phases of the mission. The timing of the engines is crucial to intercept the Moon in its orbit around the Earth. This allows the spacecraft to enter the Moon's gravitational field, a region of space where our satellite's gravitational pull is dominant on Earth. A few minutes of delay (or advance) in the maneuver can lead to a trajectory error such that the spacecraft will not enter the lunar gravitational sphere but will be lost outside the orbit of our satellite.
The exact moment to start the engines to perform the transfer lunar injection is therefore carefully calculated by engineers in the years leading up to the mission, taking into account the speed of the moon. After this real temporal moment, the third stage will be discarded and the phase of the journey called Transfer Lunar Orbit will begin, which will bring the capsule within sight of our satellite in three days.
At that point, the engines will be turned on again to slow the spacecraft and insert it into a circular orbit. This technique is called Lunar Orbit Insertion. After orbiting our satellite while releasing 10 CubeSat satellites, which represent secondary science payloads, Orion will enter a special orbit called a Distant Retrograde Orbit. Station, on a future mission, which will begin in 2023.
The presence of a lunar station would completely change the method of landing since the Apollo era. In the past, the spacecraft used by the Apollo astronauts were able to carry much more propellant than Orion. This results in a greater thrust being provided by the engines which allows the lunar orbit insertion maneuver to reach a very low lunar orbit from which direct descent maneuvers can be initiated. Instead, the philosophy of the Artemis program would be to dock Orion into a much higher orbit with a gateway and then descend to the surface with a dedicated vehicle (supplied by SpaceX).
The orbital variant would take Orion 60,000 km from the moon. Thus breaking in 1970 the distance record achieved by Apollo 13. Six days later, the Orion capsule will exit Distant Retrograde Orbit with another lunar flyby, finally pushing it on its home course.
After the usual three-day journey, close to Earth, the Orion service module will drop off and plunge into our planet's atmosphere at 11 kilometers per second. The capsule's thermal shield, so far untested, must withstand temperatures of about 2,700 degrees Celsius. After nearly six weeks, and a total distance of more than three million kilometers traveled, the mission will end with a splashdown on the Baja coast of California.
Will everything be alright? Of course, it will, and from the moment Commander Munikin emerges safely from the Campos capsule we will begin counting the months until the launch of Artemis II, the mission that will take men to orbit the Moon for the first time. 1972. A mission that closely resembles the amazing feat of Apollo 8 on Christmas 1968. And just like then yes, everything will be alright.