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When do people return to the moon? NASA’s new mission offers instructions to
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When do people return to the moon? NASA’s new mission offers instructions to

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The Civil Space Agency NASA of the United States has announced plans to launch a crew members around the moon in April next year, although it might already come in February.
The 10-day mission with four astronauts is part of the Artemis program of NASA, the US’s flagship to bring people back to the moon in 2027.
“This flight is another step in the direction of crews to the moon surface and helping the agency to prepare for future astronautsmissions to Mars,” Nasa said in a statement.
The crew – consisting of three American astronauts and one Canadian – would be the first to turn around the moon in more than half a century.

“Together we have a chair in the front row to history: after more than 50 years we return to the moon,” said Nasa Acting deputy associated manager Lakiesha Hawkins at a press conference on Tuesday.

The Artemis 2 -crew consists of astronauts (from right to left) Reid Wiseman, the commander of the mission who last flew on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the international space station; Victor Glover, the pilot who flew to space in 2020 on a SpaceX ISS mission; Christina Koch, a mission specialist who flew on a Soyuz ISS mission in 2019; And the Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, another mission specialist who will fly to space for the first time. Source: Getty / Austin Desisto / Nurphoto

The Artemis 2 mission follows a detailed mission that placed a spacecraft in the Lunar Orbit in November 2022 and brought back to Earth about four weeks later.

Artemis 2 have delayed several setbacks, but Hawkins says that NASA is planning to maintain the use of a launch from the beginning of 2026.

According to NASA, the goals of the Artemis project to “explore the moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits and to lay the foundation for the first crew missions for Mars”.

A ‘free ride’ and a ‘catapult’

Richard de Gray of astrophysics and Space Technologies Research Center of the Macquarie University compared the Artemis 2 mission with “a test drive of a new car”.
“This is a test drive of a new spacecraft that is meant to bring people back to the moon. But this is the first time, so they will do a fly-around instead of a landing,” he told SBS News.
“They will handle the job, they will circl the earth once, and then – if all goes well, because tests are of course performed during that orbital journey – they will set course for the moon.”

“This is done in such a way that they will essentially use the moon’s gravity to get a free ride back – in case something happens,” he said.

A huge, orange and white rocket core stage is transported on a vehicle with several wheels for a large building with the "ARTEMIS" Logo on it. A group of people in clear cardigans walk next to it and gives a feeling of his immense scale.

Employees transport the 64m high SLS Core Stage for the Artemis II Moon Rocket in Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in July last year. Source: Getty / Paul Hennessy / Anadolu

“So it’s a complete circle around the earth, and then a slingshot around the moon back to earth.”

Lead Artemis 2 Flight Director Jeff Radigan has said that the mission will take the crew at least 9,000 km past the moon.
“So the moon will look a bit smaller,” he said.

NASA has said, if the mission loses according to plan, the Artemis 2 -space vessel in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego will land.

‘The Apollo program for our time’

The last time people landed on the Moon was December 1972 – the last mission of the NASA Apollo program, a series of space flights undertaken by NASA between 1961 and 1972.
It was the sixth time that people had set foot on the moon, with the first human lunar landing that of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in July 1969.
“[Artemis] is the Apollo program for our time. That is how you could characterize it. It is a big, daring thing, “said the gray.

“They want to bring people back to the moon, not only for three years as they did during the Apollo era, but for a more sustainable presence.”

Jonti Horner, an astronomer located at the University of South Queensland, characterized a permanent human presence on the moon as “a step to the rest of the solar system”.
“One of the goals is this idea to be permanently present at the [moon’s] Zuidpool, with a station in a job, and also use it as a place where we can build to go to Mars or go to the asteroids or where we want to go, “he said.
Horner said that the program would probably have “a huge amount of benefit” for science.
“I think that as soon as we can get people to the moon, or to Mars along the line, those huge roads open for exploration because it is a lot easier if you are personally there to walk around and go:” That looks interesting. I will look at it. “
“You would learn more about Mars by sending a geologist there with a hammer and giving them for an hour than we have learned from all years of robot -like spacecraft that go there.”
De Gray said that one of the most important scientific benefits would be the possibility to analyze large amounts of moon soil.

“At the moment we have had a few sample returns, the most recently by the Chinese. But what they take with them is a relatively small volume of material, often no more than one or two kilograms of Regoliet, the Moon bottom,” he said.

A rock on a small metal platform.

A 3.2-million year old rock of sintered moon bottom collected by Apollo 15 in a nitrogen-filled box under pressure. Source: AP / Michael Wyke

“With people there you could look at larger parts, and in particular what is interesting for scientists is” Where does the Moon come from? “

“And so, depending on where you are on the moon, different soil samples, regolith monsters, will be able to tell you much more about the origin of the moon. And so you have to taste much more than just a few pounds here and there.”

According to NASA: “Different theories about the formation of our moon compete for dominance”, but almost all of them agree that the moon “born out of destruction” – probably an object or series of objects that collide and melted in the earth and evaporated debris about 4.5 billion years ago in space in space.

‘Some very difficult conversations’

De Gray said that, although scientific progress was definitely an important motivator of the Artemis program: “Ultimately it is also about resources”.
The mineral resources mineral resources was “absolutely on the horizon,” he said, but water was probably the first extracted tool.

“In recent years there has been a lot of interest in the southern hemisphere of the moon, in particular to the south of the Polar Circle of the Moon, where possible frozen water is possible for means for more permanent settlement or even as a reservoir for further journey to the solar system,” he said.

Horner said that this water could be “really valuable” to deliver fuel for rocket launches.
“If you can extract that from the South Pole of the Moon, launch it to the station in a job to the Moon … You can use that to feed all your missions and save a lot of money.”
Horner, however, expects that the extraction of the moon sources will activate in the decades that see the balance between our commercial use of the moon and what people see on the spot when they look up “.
“For different cultures around the world, the moon is very sacred,” he said.

“And so there will be a number of very difficult conversations and hopefully a very good understanding have been achieved to ensure that we get the best for everyone with minimal damage.”

A new space competition?

China also has a space program that focuses on 2030 at the last minute for his first crew mission to the Moon and is also planning to eventually establish a base on the Moon.
US President Donald Trump, who announced the Artemis program during his first term, wants the American space agency to return to the Moon as quickly as possible and during his second term, his administration has piled up the pressure on NASA to speed up their progress.

The Trump government has referred to a “second space competition”, a successor of the 20th-century cold war competition about space technology between the US and the Soviet Union.

“There is definitely a sense of competition there, and that is rightly not necessarily a bad thing,” Horner said.
“It can be a real cause of technological development and of pushing the boundaries to what we can do,” he added.
“I would rather look countries to explore as a way to show their power instead of bending their military muscles.”

De Gray, which is also executive director of the International Space Science Institute – Beijing, says that it can “be seen as a space match on the American side”, but that is not a feeling Shared by China.

A satellite shoots away from a launch platform and releases large amounts of fire and smoke.

A Yaogan-45 satellite shoots on 9 September from the launch site of the Wenshang room vessels in the province of Hainan, China. Source: MONKEY / Yang Guanyu / EPA

“Many people in the West say in particular:” This is a new space competition with China, “and that’s how it is characterized, but I don’t really agree with that assessment,” he said SBS News.

“[The Chinese] Work on a five -year schedule. They have five -year plans, and each five -year plan they have certain things they want to achieve, and they go slowly but steadily, and they build up their expertise and their innovation.
“The Chinese have a plan to also go to the moon, but I don’t think they are being hurried by what the Americans do.”
– With additional reporting by Reuters and AFP

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