NASA’s Artemis Project

Context:

NASA is forging ahead with its ‘Artemis program’ to land humans on the moon by 2024.

About:

• NASA is committed to landing American astronauts, including the first woman and the next man, on the Moon by 2024.
• Through the agency’s Artemis lunar exploration program, NASA will use innovative new technologies and systems to explore more of the Moon than ever before.
• The astronauts going for the Artemis program will wear newly designed spacesuits, called Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or xEMU.
  • These spacesuits feature advanced mobility and communications and interchangeable parts that can be configured for spacewalks in microgravity or on a planetary surface.

Artemis Base Camp

• Artemis Base Camp, meant to be a long-term foothold for lunar exploration, perhaps in Shackleton Crater at the moon’s south pole.
• Artemis Base Camp itself would be a lunar foundation surface habitat that could host four astronauts at the south pole.
• In the long term, the facility would also require infrastructure for power, waste disposal, and communications, as well as radiation shielding and a landing pad.
• The base could also be a site for testing new techniques for dealing with pesky lunar dust and the long, cold lunar nights, turning local materials into resources like water, and developing new power and construction technologies.
• The camp would be accompanied and supported by two mobility systems:
  • a lunar terrain vehicle to facilitate astronaut movement across the surface
  • a habitable mobility platform that could support trips away from base for up to 45 days.