Artemis Mission

Why in news?

Corona virus to delay Artemis Mission.

Artemis Mission

• Artemis mission is a lunar exploration program of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States of America (USA). Under it, NASA plans to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon by the year 2024.
• ARTEMIS stands for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of Moon’s Interaction with the Sun. The program will demonstrate new technologies, capabilities and business approaches needed for future exploration including Mars.
• The mission was named after the Greek mythological goddess of the Moon and twin sister to Apollo
• NASA will send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft to the lunar South Pole. After making expeditions to the surface of the Moon they will return on the same spacecraft.
• The astronauts going for the Artemis program will wear newly designed spacesuits, called Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit or xEMU. These spacesuits feature advanced mobility and communications and interchangeable parts that can be configured for spacewalks in microgravity or on a planetary surface.
• Apart from the purpose of space exploration itself, NASA’s endeavor to send Americans to the Moon again is to demonstrate American leadership in space and to establish a strategic presence on the Moon while expanding the US global economic impact.
• Objectives of the mission are:
  • To find and use water and other critical resources needed for long-term exploration
  • To investigate the Moon’s mysteries and learn more about our home planet and the universe
  • To learn how to live and operate on the surface of another celestial body where astronauts are just three days from home
  • To prove the technologies NASA need before sending astronauts on missions to Mars which can take up to three years roundtrip

Why the mission prefers lunar South Pole?

• The South Pole region contains ice and that’s one of the main reasons NASA will send astronauts to the South Pole.
• Water is a critical resource for long-term exploration. It could potentially be used for drinking, cooling equipment, breathing and making rocket fuel for missions farther into the solar system.
• The South Pole’s frozen water may date back billions of years and has been untainted by the Sun’s radiation or the geological processes. Studying samples of ice from polar regions of Earth has revealed how our planet's climate and atmosphere have evolved over thousands of years. Such a study of lunar ice may produce similar outcomes.
• The South Pole is also a good target for a future human landing because robotically, it’s the most thoroughly investigated region on the Moon.

Water on the Moon

• The floors of polar craters reach frigid temperatures because they are permanently in shadow as a result of the low angle at which sunlight strikes the Moon’s surface in the polar regions and also because the Moon has no atmosphere to help warm up its surface.
• The permanently shadowed craters of moon feature some of the lowest temperatures in the solar system — down to -248 degree Celsius. Water ice is stable at these temperatures and it is believed that some of these craters harbor significant ice deposits.

Exploration of Moon so far

• In 1959, the Soviet Union’s uncrewed Luna 1 and 2 became the first rover to visit the Moon
• On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission of NASA. After July 1969, 12 American astronauts walked on the surface of the Moon until 1972. Together, the Apollo astronauts brought back over 382 kg of lunar rock and soil back to Earth for study.
• Apart from the US, the European Space Agency, Japan, China and India have sent missions to explore the Moon.
• China landed two rovers on the surface of moon, which includes the first-ever landing on the Moon’s far side in 2019.
• Efforts by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
  • The ISRO spearheaded two missions to moon so far. They are Chandrayaan 1 and Chandrayaan 2.
    • Chandrayaan 1
      • It was India’s first mission to moon launched successfully by the ISRO in 2008. It comprised an orbiter and an impactor.
      • The main objectives of the mission were to:
      1. Conduct various scientific experiments by the use of instruments on the spacecraft to yield data for studies
      2. Prepare a 3-D atlas of both the far and near sides of the moon
      3. Provide high-resolution chemical and mineral imaging of the entire surface of the moon
      4. Gather information about lunar volatiles by observing X-ray spectrum in the energy range of 10-200 keV
      5. Detect the presence of water on the moon.
      • Chandrayaan operated for 312 days against the planned two years but was successful by achieving 95% of its planned objectives.Chandrayaan-1’s greatest discovery was the widespread presence of water molecules in the lunar soil.
    • Chandrayaan 2
      • It was the second lunar exploration mission developed by the ISRO. It consisted of a lunar orbiter and also included the Vikram lander and the Pragyan lunar rover all of which were developed in India.
      • The primary objectives of the Chandrayaan-2 lander were to demonstrate the ability to soft-land on the lunar surface and operate a robotic rover on the surface. Scientific goals include orbital studies of lunar topography, mineralogy, elemental abundance, the lunar exosphere, and signatures of hydroxyl and water ice. The onboard radar would also map the surface while studying the water ice in the south polar region
      • The spacecraft was launched on 22 July 2019. It aimed to explore the south pole of the moon by soft landing a rover. But in the final stage of landing, a software glitch resulted in crash landing and the communication was lost.
• Now the ISRO is planning to send Chandrayaan 3 by 2021 for reattempting soft landing on moon.