Send astronauts to the moon in three steps in 2024
Science and Technology Daily News (Reporter Liu Xia) According to a recent report by the physicist organization network, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently announced the latest arrangements for its "Artemis" lunar landing plan: The crew will be sent to the moon in three steps. The entire mission will cost 28 billion U.S. dollars, of which 16 billion U.S. dollars will be used to develop the lunar module.
US President Trump has made this moon landing plan a priority for development.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said at a press conference that "political risk" is usually the biggest threat to NASA's exploration program.
For example, President Obama canceled the manned Mars exploration program after he took office-even though the previous president has spent billions of dollars on the project.
Bridenstine said: "If Congress approves the first $3.2 billion appropriation before Christmas, we are still expected to achieve the moon landing in 2024. To be precise, our target is the lunar south pole, and between 1969 and 1969 In the Apollo program launched between 1972, the lander landed on the Moon’s equator."
In April of this year, NASA announced that it had signed a $967 million contract with three space companies, Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX, to design a manned landing system. "One of the companies developed The landing system will send the first female and a male astronaut to the lunar surface in 2024."
The first flight-"Artemis 1" mission will be launched in November 2021. This is an unmanned flight. The new giant rocket space launch system (SLS) currently in the testing phase will be the same as "Orion" for the first time. The spacecraft lifted off together.
Subsequently, in 2023, "Artemis 2" will carry astronauts around the moon, but will not land on the moon.
Eventually, in 2024, "Artemis 3" will land on the moon like the Apollo 11 launched in 1969, except that it will stay longer-a week, and it will be carried out 2-5 times" Extravehicular activities".
Bridenstine said: "The scientific exploration we are going to carry out this time is very different from the Apollo era. In the Apollo era, we thought the moon was very dry, but now we know that there is a lot of water ice on the moon, and we also know that , These water ice are located at the south pole of the moon."