NASA’s Artemis program aims to land humans on the moon to help carry out scientific and exploration missions to more places, including Mars. NASA’s project focuses on three key components that enable permanent human presence and research on the lunar surface:
- A lunar surface area vehicle (LTV) used to orbit the moon. Basically, it’s a rover, but it’s a pilot instead of a robot. It will not have a closed cockpit, so astronauts will have to wear extra-vehicle Activity (EVA) space suits that provide protection when using it for short trips.
- A habitable mobility platform, it will be a large rover with many things, capable of traveling up to 45 days at a time from where the spacecraft is stationed.
- An ISS-style surface habitat that allows the crew to live permanently on the lunar surface for a short period of time and serve as a home. Deep Space Gateway or Lunar Orbit Platform. This one
It can accommodate up to four astronauts at a time. However, the habitable mobility platform itself will be the primary active residence of surface missions. Gateway, like the International Space Station, over time
Designed for scaling, it adds new modules to make it more livable, and has extra work and test space.
This is important not only for lunar surface missions, but also as a way to explore Mars and beyond. If all goes as planned, the project will be an important step in understanding man’s longest stay in deep space environments and how a human journey to Mars would work. The biggest feature of the Artemis mission is that this time a woman will land on the moon.
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