13 landing sites for the next "Moonwalkers" of the Artemis project

13 landing sites for the next “Moonwalkers” of the Artemis project

NASA has selected thirteen regions of our natural satellite where astronauts from the Artemis program could land within three or four years. They are all located near the Moon’s south pole and are nonluminous shelters where water ice is stored.

Canceled August 29, 2022 The launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) Mega rocket will take place on Saturday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (USA) at 2:17 pm (local time, 8:17). P.M. Paris time) weather permitting. It will carry the Orion capsule into lunar orbit for several weeks. About fifty years after the Apollo missions, it would mark the beginning of the Artemis program, which aimed to land humans on the moon again.

SLS rocket and its various components Credit: Nsa

SLS rocket and its various components Credit: Nsa

SLS rocket and its various components

A three-step plan

After this first unmanned flight, the second phase of the program (Artemis 2) will carry a crew in the same capsule in 2024. Then in 2025 or 2026, Elon Musk’s SpaceX-designed Starship HLS spacecraft will carry two people. Astronauts from Orion to the lunar surface. The landing site of Artemis 3 is yet to be determined. But NASA said in an interview that it had selected 13 potential candidates. It is in one of these regions that astronauts (including a woman) will set foot on the dusty and gray land of our companion.

Go to the South Pole

Unlike the Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972, which landed near the equator and on the visible side of the Moon, Artemis 3 will target the polar regions. Each of the 13 selected regions is located within 6° of latitude of the South Pole. They measure about 15 kilometers on each side. and troughs, corresponding to peaks or edges of plateaus or connecting ridges. Their names are: Fastini Rim A, Peak Near Shackleton, Connecting Ridge, Connecting Ridge Extension, De Gerlach Rim 1, De Gerlach Rim 2, De Gerlach-Cocher Massif, Haworth, Malabert Massif, Leibniz Beta Plateau, 1 Nobile Rimmy, 2 , Amundsen Rim. “This is a new part of the moon. A part we never reveal[…]

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