The flight, dubbed Artemis 1, is the first in what NASA is calling its Artemis programme. One, a tiny lander from Japan, is even intended to touch down on the Moon: if the attempt succeeds, the nation will become the fourth to have soft-landed on the Moon. ![]() Some experiments will be carried around the Moon and back others will be deployed into space. ![]() Other scientific payloads on the flight include two small satellites that will map ice on the Moon, a solar sail that will head towards an asteroid, and humanoid mannequins that will measure how radiation affects the body’s internal organs. The idea is to maximize the output of the US$4-billion-plus test flight. “We have reached a new age of space-flight sciences research,” says Zea, an aerospace engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder. Zea’s experiment, which will be travelling on the test flight with a number of others, will be tucked beneath one of the astronaut seats on Orion. The $93-billion plan to put astronauts back on the Moon When this happens, it will be the first time that humans will have travelled beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 astronauts returned from the Moon in 1972. The test flight is crucial because NASA plans to use the capsule to send astronauts to the Moon in the coming years. That capsule, called Orion, will fly around the Moon - farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever gone - and return to Earth 42 days later. If all goes to plan, the SLS will lift off from its launch pad on 29 August and propel into space a small, uncrewed capsule that is capable of carrying astronauts. ![]() It will be hitching a ride on the first flight of the most powerful rocket ever built - NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). He was at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, on Florida’s east coast, getting the equipment ready to fly to space.īut the set-up, which will test how yeast genes respond to deep-space radiation, won’t fly on any old rocket. Luis Zea couldn’t stop grinning as he talked about his biology experiment on Zoom this month. During the Artemis 1 flight, the Orion capsule will fly past the Moon, and return to Earth up to 42 days later.
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