Project Artemis Archives

October 19, 2020October 19, 2020 by Evan Gough

NASA and Seven Countries Sign the Artemis Accords for the Exploration of the Moon. Russia Declined to Participate

In this illustration, an astronaut carefully climbs down the ladder and carefully places her foot on the Moon. Image Credit: NASA

It looks like Russia is thumbing its nose at international cooperation on the Moon. They’ve refused to sign the Artemis Accords, which are a set of rules governing Lunar exploration. NASA and seven other countries have signed on already, with more to come.

October 18, 2020October 18, 2020 by Matt Williams

NASA Announces 14 New “Tipping Point” Technologies for its Lunar Exploration

Artist's impression of surface operations on the Moon. Credit: NASA

In four years, NASA plans to return astronauts to the Moon as part of Project Artemis. To ensure the success of this endeavor, as well as the creation of a program of sustainable lunar exploration by the end of the decade, NASA has partnered with multiple entities in the commercial space sector. Recently, they announced that contracts will be awarded to 14 additional companies to develop a range of proposed technologies.

These proposals are part of NASA’s fifth competitive Tipping Point solicitation, one of many private-public partnership programs overseen by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). For this latest solicitation, Tipping Point is awarding contracts with a combined value of over $370 million for technology demonstrations that will facilitate future lunar missions and commercial space capabilities.

October 11, 2020October 11, 2020 by Matt Williams

The Moon is the Perfect Spot for SETI

In less than four years, NASA plans to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon as part of Project Artemis. This long-awaited return to the Moon is to be followed by the construction of the Lunar Gateway, the Artemis Base Camp, and a program of “sustainable lunar exploration.” The creation of an enduring human presence on the Moon will also create many opportunities for exciting scientific research.

For example, astronomers want to conduct radio astronomy on the far side of the Moon, where telescopes could probe the earliest period of the Universe free of terrestrial radio interference. Taking this a step further, a team of astronomers recently recommended that a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon (or in lunar orbit) could aid in another important area of research: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)!

October 1, 2020October 1, 2020 by Matt Williams

NASA Has a New Challenge to Bring Frozen Samples of the Moon Back to Earth

When astronauts return to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era, they will be tasked with conducting some very lucrative science operations. Like their predecessors, this will include a sample-return mission, where they bring back lunar rocks and regolith for study. There have also been proposals that renewed missions to the Moon bring back samples of lunar ice so scientists can determine where the Moon’s water came from.

And it appears NASA was listening and would like some public input on this! To this end, the NASA Tournament Lab and TechConnect Ventures (a n open-innovation platform) have come together to launch the NASA Lunar Deep Freeze Challenge. Basically, NASA is looking for ideas on how cold samples collected in the lunar polar region could be preserved and kept frozen for the return trip to Earth.

September 28, 2020September 28, 2020 by Matt Williams

NASA’s New Budget for Artemis? $28 Billion

Illustration of Artemis astronauts on the Moon. Credits: NASA

It’s no exaggeration to say that NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the Moon has faced its share of challenges. From its inception, Project Artemis has set some ambitious goals, up to and including placing “the first woman and next man” on the Moon by 2024. Aside from all the technical challenges that this entails, there’s also the question of budgets. As the Apollo Era taught us, reaching the moon in a few years doesn’t come cheap!

Funding is an especially sticky issue right now because of the fact that we’re in an election year and NASA may be dealing with a new administration come Jan of 2021. In response, NASA announced a budget last week (Mon. Sept 21st) that put a price tag on returning astronauts to the Moon. According to NASA, it will cost taxpayers $28 billion between 2021 and 2025 to make sure Project Artemis’ meets its deadline of 2024.

September 19, 2020September 30, 2020 by Matt Williams

Artemis Missions Should Bring Ice Home From the Moon Too

A map showing the permanently shadowed regions (blue) that cover about 3 percent of the moon's south pole. Credit: NASA Goddard/LRO mission Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-01-nasa-solar-storms-soils-moon.html#jCp

During the Apollo Era, astronauts conducted vital science operations on the Moon, which included bringing samples of lunar rocks back to Earth for study. Thanks to the examination of these rocks, scientists were able to learn a great deal about the formation and evolution of the Moon and even found evidence of lunar water. In the coming years, when NASA sends astronauts back as part of Project Artemis, more samples will be returned.

Recently, NASA put out the call for science white papers to help them design a framework for the kind of science operations the Artemis astronauts will conduct. According to one proposal, the Artemis astronauts should not only bring back samples of lunar regolith or rocks but lunar ice as well. By examining them here on Earth, scientists may finally be able to resolve the mystery of where the Moon’s water came from.

September 15, 2020September 15, 2020 by Matt Williams

NASA Will Pay You to Retrieve Regolith and Rocks from the Moon

Artist's illustration of the new spacesuit NASA is designing for Artemis astronauts. It's called the xEMU,, or Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit. Image Credit: NASA

As part of Project Artemis, NASA intends to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon by 2024, in what will be the first crewed mission to the lunar since the Apollo Era. By the end of the decade, NASA also hopes to have all the infrastructure in place to create a program for “sustainable lunar exploration,” which will include the Lunar Gateway (a habitat in orbit) and the Artemis Base Camp (a habitat on the surface).

Part of this commitment entails the recovery and use of resources that are harvested locally, including regolith to create building materials and ice to create everything from drinking water to rocket fuel. To this end, NASA has asked its commercial partners to collect samples of lunar soil or rocks as part of a proof-of-concept demonstration of how they will scout and harvest natural resources and conduct commercial operations on the Moon.

August 21, 2020August 21, 2020 by Matt Williams

Lunar Landings Will Make it Harder to Study the Moon’s Ice Deposits

When astronauts return to the Moon in the next few years (as part of Project Artemis) they will be scouting locations and resources around the South Pole-Aitken Basin that will eventually help them to stay there. In this cratered, permanently-shadowed region, water ice has been found in abundance, which could one-day be harvested for drinking water, irrigation, and the creation of oxygen gas and rocket fuels.

A critical aspect to planning for all or this is to consider how future missions may affect the local environment. Based on new research from a team of planetary scientists and engineers, a major risk comes in the form of contamination by lunar landers. In short, exhaust from these vehicles could spread around the Moon and contaminate the very ices the astronauts hope to study.

August 3, 2020August 3, 2020 by Matt Williams

Perseverance Went Into Safe Mode Shortly After Launch, But it’s Fine

Artist's impression of the Perseverance rover on Mars. Credit: NASA-JPL

On Thursday, July 30th, NASA launched the most sophisticated Mars rover ever built atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.This mission includes the Perseverance rover (Curiosity‘s sister vehicle) and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, both of which are being flown on a seven-month journey by the Mars 2020 spacecraft.

In a minor hiccup, the Mars 2020 spacecraft entered safe mode a few hours after launch, apparently due to a temperature anomaly. This was the conclusion reached by mission controllers after receiving telemetry data on the spacecraft via the NASA Deep Space Network. Luckily, the spacecraft is working nominally and is on its way toward Mars to join in the search for evidence of past (and present) life!

July 24, 2020July 24, 2020 by Matt Williams

The Moon is an Ideal Spot for a Gravitational Wave Observatory

High-resolution view of the lunar surface (JAXA/SELENE)

In the coming years, multiple space agencies will be sending missions (including astronauts) to the Moon’s southern polar region to conduct vital research. In addition to scouting resources in the area (in preparation for the construction of a lunar base) these missions will also investigate the possibility of conducting various scientific investigations on the far side of the Moon.

However, two prominent scientists (Dr. Karan Jani and Prof. Abraham Loeb) recently published a paper where they argue that another kind of astronomy could be conducted on the far side of the Moon – Gravitational Wave astronomy! As part of NASA’s Project Artemis, they explain how a Gravitational-wave Lunar Observatory for Cosmology (GLOC) would be ideal for exploring GW in the richest and most challenging frequencies.