Photograph: NasaĪs part of its preparations to establish a lunar colony, Nasa will also start a massive programme of robot missions through the agency’s $2.6bn commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative.
Landers built by private companies with Nasa’s backing will carry science and technology missions to the lunar surface. Water will not only provide precious sustenance for astronauts, it can be exploited as a source of hydrogen and oxygen – by electrolysis – that can be combined as rocket fuel.
A prime target for the first lunar outpost is Shackleton crater, near the moon’s south pole, which is believed to hold reservoirs of ice. This time the crew will include at least one woman and the mission will mark the beginning of a programme aimed at establishing a lunar colony where astronauts would work on months-long missions and develop technologies that could be used by future colonies on Mars. If February’s mission succeeds, a crewed trip around the moon will take place in 2024 and this will be followed by a lunar landing in 2025 – a gap of 53 years since Apollo 17, the last crewed moon mission, touched down on the Taurus-Littrow valley in December 1972. This will give its manufacturer – the European Space Agency – the opportunity to become a key partner in future Artemis missions. At its closest, the spaceship will sweep within 62 miles of the lunar surface before soaring 40,000 miles above it, a distance that will take it further from Earth than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown.Ĭrucially, Orion – designed to carry between four and six astronauts when fully operational – will be fitted with a European service module that will provide the capsule’s power and propulsion for manoeuvring in orbit. The programme’s first launch is scheduled for February when an SLS rocket – standing more than 300ft high – will carry an unmanned Orion capsule on a trajectory that will enter a highly elliptical orbit round the moon. With these missions, Nasa intends to reopen the solar system to investigation by humans – rather than robot probes – and regularly carry astronauts to the lunar surface. This is the most powerful rocket it has ever designed and has been built to carry astronauts to the moon and beyond as part of the agency’s Artemis deep space exploration programme. Particular interest is going to focus on Nasa’s mighty new space launch system (SLS). A mockup of Nasa’s Orion space capsule, which will carry four astronauts in future missions to the moon, an asteroid or Mars.