The US is planning to launch the new lunar mission Artemis 1 in Feb 2022

NASA is aiming to launch its uncrewed lunar mission Artemis 1 in February one year from now, the space organization said Friday, the first step in America’s plan to return people to the Moon.

The office had at first would have liked to launch the test flight before the current year’s over, with astronauts set to walk on the Moon by 2024.

After additional tests, it will be rolled out to the launchpad for a “wet dress rehearsal” in January, with the first window for launch opening in February, authorities told journalists on a call.

These potential launch periods are reliant upon orbital mechanics and the relative position of the Earth concerning the Moon. The mission duration is relied upon to be four to about a month and a half.

Artemis 2 is then planned for 2023 and Artemis 3 for the next year when people will walk on the Moon for the first time beginning around 1972. The two missions are currently likely to be pushed back, be that as it may.

The space organization is looking to build up a maintainable presence on the Moon as well as use the lessons it figures out how to design a crewed trip to Mars during the 2030s.

Orion first flew into space in 2014, launched by a Delta IV rocket, making two circumnavigations of Earth and testing its heat shield on re-entry into the atmosphere.

Artemis 1 has a few targets: to show Orion’s capacity to get back from the Moon and work in deep space where it is “much colder than in low Earth orbit,” and to effectively recuperate the spacecraft, he added.

NASA is expecting to fly its enormous, next-generation rocket, the Space Launch System, for the first time in February of 2022, a critical test flight on NASA’s journey to send individuals back to the Moon. Nonetheless, a lot of tests need to work out in a good way before the much-deferred vehicle can at last take flight.

Affirmation of the new target date, which was supposed in August, comes a day after engineers completely stacked the Space Launch System, or SLS, inside NASA’s huge hangar at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Remaining at 322 feet high, the SLS rises taller than the Statue of Liberty.

On top of the stack is NASA’s Orion crew capsule, a new spacecraft that has been developed to carry individuals into deep space. Be that as it may, when the SLS flies for the first time next year, there will not be any individuals on board. The test mission will send a vacant Orion case on a four-to six-week-long trip around the Moon.

SLS’ debut flight is known as Artemis I, the first significant flight in NASA’s Artemis program. If the flight is successful, the SLS and Orion’s next mission will be Artemis II, which will carry NASA astronauts on a comparative trajectory around the Moon.

The program will finish with landing the main lady and the first woman and the first person of color on the surface of the Moon. During the Trump administration, Vice President Mike Pence provoked NASA to get this landing to happen as early as 2024.

That timetable has since been called into question, given the complexity of the mission and various postponements. Initially, NASA imagined the SLS flying for the first time back in 2017, yet its debut has been reliably pushed back again and again because of improper management and cost overruns. Meanwhile, NASA additionally needs a lunar lander to bring individuals down to the surface of the Moon, which the SLS and Orion can’t do alone.

The space agency awarded SpaceX an agreement to develop its new vehicle, called Starship, to take individuals to the Moon’s surface. Yet, the vehicle has a lengthy, difficult experience of development ahead, and claims filed by competitor Blue Origin, which didn’t get the NASA contract, have complicated the process. Then, at that point, there is as yet the question of growing new spacesuits, which could likewise hold up the timeline.

Regardless of all that, NASA hasn’t exactly abandoned the 2024 target date, even after Joe Biden became president. “It’s a stretch, it’s a challenge, but the schedule is 2024,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in June. Nelson additionally recently recognized the sheer amount of work and obstacles that should be overcome.

For the present, NASA is for the most part focused on getting Artemis I going. If all works out positively, NASA intends to carry out the completely stacked SLS to the launchpad late this year.

Early next year, the mission team will direct what’s known as a wet dress rehearsal, where they will fill the rocket with similar fuels it will use for flight yet without lighting the rocket’s engines. When that is finished, NASA will then, at that point, roll the rocket back to its hangar for extra checks before moving it to the launchpad again in front of the flight.

“I tell you I couldn’t be prouder of the team that got us to where we are today, despite the multiple challenges that we faced with COVID and major storms — most recently, Hurricane Ida — and the impacts that had on our testing facilities,” John Honeycutt, the SLS program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, said during a press conference today.

At this point, Artemis I has three diverse launch windows: one in February, one in March, and one in April. Every window, directed by how the Earth is moving with regards to its axis and the Moon’s turn throughout our world, is about 15 days in length, with the first window opening on February 12th. The timing of the launch within the window directs how long Artemis I will remain in space, making it either a four-week mission or a six-week mission.

When Artemis I is finished, then, at that point, comes Artemis II with a target launch date at some point in 2023. For that flight, individuals will be ready, which implies the vehicle will require considerably more increases, notably a life support system. NASA would not say whether the most recent SLS delays have pushed back Artemis II, just that an update is coming.

“I think the agency is continuing to look at that; we’re evaluating the status of that mission,” Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for investigation systems improvement at NASA, said during today’s press conference.