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Added on the 11/09/2020 19:14:04 - Copyright : Euronews EN
The Artemis program marks the first step in the new era of human exploration. Together with commercial and international partners like JAXA, NASA hopes to establish a sustainable presence on the Moon to launch missions to Mars. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Toyota are also contributing to the programme. MHI will do so through the development of the LUPEX – acronym in English for the Lunar Polar Expedition – and Toyota through the joint development of a manned lunar rover with JAXA. With this "Lunar Cruiser", Toyota hopes to apply the honed technologies used in the extreme conditions of the Moon on Earth.
NASA unveils its Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 2 space mission, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral in Florida. The mission scheduled for late 2024, will take a crew of four astronauts to the Moon. IMAGES
NASA's Orion space capsule splashes down safely in the Pacific, completing the Artemis-1 mission -- a more than 25-day journey around the Moon with an eye to returning humans there in coming years. IMAGES
Scientists used to say there were millions of tons of ice in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon’s poles. Now, HuffPost reports a pair of studies in the journal Nature Astronomy says there's far, far more potential water available. Twenty percent more, to be exact. A team led by the University of Colorado's Paul Hayne says more than 15,400 square miles of lunar terrain have the capability to trap water in the form of ice. However, lead researcher Casey Honniball says the molecules are so far apart that they are in neither liquid nor solid form. To be clear, this is not puddles of water. Casey Honniball, Lead Researcher Postdoctoral fellow, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland Greater access to water could allow astronauts and robots more places to land, and support future lunar bases. Scientists believe the moon's water came from comets, asteroids, interplanetary dust, solar wind, or even lunar volcanic eruptions.
This four-wheeled robot rover is undergoing its final trials on Japan's Tottori Sand Dunes before it will be flown into space and out to its final test - a 1,640 foot ride on the surface of the moon. Called the Moonraker, the rover was built by Team Hakuto of Japan to compete with 15 other teams from all over the world for the $20 million dollar grand prize in the Google Lunar XPrize competition. Google's Lunar XPrize competition calls for participating teams to create a rover, launch it into space, land it on the moon, have it travel at least 1,640 feet, and then send images of its travels back to the earth. The first team to successfully complete the challenge will take home the grand prize. Team Hakuto, which means 'white rabbit' in Japanese, is well on its way to securing the prize money - their Moonraker rover is scheduled to be launched from Earth by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket soon. The purpose is to create a cheap machine to help humans easily explore the moon, and maybe even prepare it for colonization. The Hakuto team hope that the Moonraker will be able to explore holes on the moon's surface and perhaps discover cave systems. The future looks interesting indeed.
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