Introduction:
On 16th november 2022, the Artemis 1 soared in the sky. It was phenomenal to see the world's most powerful rocket piercing the sky, getting ready to make history. You probably should know about America's feat in the space race.
The first human step on the moon, asserted America's superiority in technology and space missions.
But what significant did the Apollo mission do to humanity except travelling to and fro the moon? Did it pave the way for any further deep space mission? Did we settle on the moon?
And now we are going to the moon again. Is it for the same thing we did during the Apollo mission? Or is it going to be something else?
Is this mission going to be the first step for a greater ambition of what humanity has been dreaming for ages? Let's find out the answers that have been puzzling our mind.
What was the goal of the Apollo mission?
The answer for the question above is pretty simple and most of you should know about it. It was just the greed to win the space race and establish a permanent place for America in the history of space travel and technological advancements.
But did it have any other goals? Although numerous experiments were conducted on the lunar surface, there was no other major reason behind America's moon landing except its desire to beat russians.
What did we learn from the series of Apollo missions?
We came to know about our moon's real history, its geology, geography and few other things.
It was also cool to see humans walking on the moon from a low resolution video and getting proud of ourselves and our advancements. But wait, is it enough to feed all our desires in space exploration? Obviously NO. After Apollo 17, the US government cancelled any further crewed lunar missions.
Just because they had won the space race and people also lost their interest in it. I was annoyed by the fact of sending astronauts to the moon just to win a competition, we could have done a lot more. Yes, I do understand the situation. Our technological capabilities fall short of our imagination. Apollo missions did what they were destined to do(Win the space race).
What about the Artemis mission?
Artemis is NASA's ongoing mission to again get back to the moon. It will also send the first ever woman and a person of colour to the moon and, We are again going to explore the lunar surface, but not near the equator. Our landing site is going to be the polar regions. That's it?
Here is where the most interesting part comes in. This mission will let us establish a permanent settlement on the moon and also a space station will be revolving around it, analogous to the ISS. This station will be called - the gateway.
Artemis mission is a collaboration of various space agencies. NASA, JAXA(Japan), ESA(European space agency) and CSA(Canada space agency) are collectively working on this mission with NASA being the main contributor.
The Moon will also be the launch base for missions to the Mars. It has always been our dream to get to Mars, and this mission will be the first step to make our ambitious dream come true.
What are the main components in the Artemis mission?
The Orion spacecraft:
This spacecraft consists of 3 main parts and Orion is the command module where the crew resides during the travel. This will carry the astronauts to lunar orbit and will have all essential habitats for crew and propulsion systems.
The Orion spacecraft was a part of the constellation program development and resembles the Apollo command module. To know more about orion spacecraft visit our constellation program article.
Space launch system(SLS):
This is the rocket that will launch the Orion spacecraft to low earth orbit. With the success of the Artemis 1, this is the most powerful rocket that ever flew to space. With a thrust of 8.8 million pounds …it's taller than the statue of liberty standing at 322ft. It is also 15% more powerful than the saturn-V rocket.
The space launch system uses the existing technologies that were used in the space shuttle missions. Although starship is considered to be the most powerful rocket in papers, this holds the throne till starship achieves a successful launch.
The lunar gateway:
This will be a space station revolving around the moon. It will be a platform for lunar landing missions and beyond. It will also be a place for the lunar lander to dock, refuel and check safety measures before landing.
This will be developed collectively by a number of space agencies including ESA, JAXA and CSA apart from NASA.
It constitutes several modules including a power and propulsion element, a habitation module for the crew, a logistics module for supplies and equipment, and a scientific airlock for conducting experiments and deploying payloads.
Similar to the ISS, this will also be the place for various technological and life-related experiments for mars and other deep space missions. This will also act as an emergency platform if something goes wrong on the surface and can also be expanded. The expansion will help in docking various crafts and more room for astronauts and conducting experiments.
The human landing system(HLS):
This is the spacecraft that will carry humans and cargo to and fro the lunar gateway. Instead of developing it by themselves, NASA contracted it to private companies. 5 companies showed interest and NASA awarded 3 competing designs.
At last NASA selected the SpaceX Starship. Although having few alternatives, Starship HLS will be widely used in lunar landing missions. Starship was designed for martial landings, but the Starship HLS is a modified version of it, designed for lunar landings.
All artemis missions:
The artemis 1:
This is an uncrewed mission that extensively tested all systems of the Orion spacecraft and also the SLS. This mission was successfully launched on 16th November 2022. It travelled in the translunar trajectory and made a flyby around the Moon. During this time all the life support systems of the Orion craft were tested.
It then came back to the earth splashing on the pacific ocean. It marked the success of this mission. It also took numerous images of the moon and also deployed a few satellites on its way to the moon. The total duration of this mission was 25.5 days. The picture above depicts the Artemis 1 mission plan.
The Artemis 2:
This will be similar to Artemis 1 achieving a flyby around the moon. But this time it will carry astronauts. This will also be the mission that will take humans to the most distant point that humans have ever been in space.
This mission will carry the crew 7402 km beyond the far side of the moon making it the most distant point humans have ever travelled.
The Artemis 3:
Here is where the real game starts. This will be the first ever moon landing since the Apollo mission in 1972. On reaching orbit, the Orion spacecraft will dock with the lunar gateway and the astronauts will remain there for the next few days working with what they were supposed to do.
From the gateway they will land down to the lunar surface using the Starship HLS and will continue working on the surface for 7 days. After completing they will return back to the gateway and finally will reach earth after a 2-3 day space trip.
Further missions:
In total 10 artemis missions have been proposed, which includes human landing, gateway construction, setting up bases etc..
New pathway:
The artemis 1 followed a different path from the Apollo missions. While Apollo 11 took 8 days, artemis 1 took 26 (approx) days. And do you know why? So before getting into the real question it's important to understand a factor that affects space travel.
What is Delta-V:
Technically, delta V is the how much change in velocity the spacecraft has to change to complete its journey. This may sound daunting to understand, but let me give you an analogy.
Imagine yourself walking on a flat road at a velocity of 1.5 m/s. Now think of climbing a mountain at the same speed. The distance you cover on climbing a mountain in 1.5 m/s should be lower than what you can cover while walking on a flat surface.
So in order to cover the same distance and avoid falling off, you will have to increase your speed, say 2 m/s. This change in velocity is called the Delta V. According to the above scenario your Delta V should be 0.5 m/s. (2 - 1.5 = 0.5m/s)
This exactly happens to a spacecraft as well. But in the realm of cosmos the spacecraft is you and the mountain is a celestial object. In our scenario the factor that was responsible for the change in speed was slope, but for a spacecraft it would be gravity. In order to not crash on a body or to get to its orbit, the spacecraft accelerates to counter the gravitational force. This change in velocity in a Spacecraft is called Delta-V.
So what's important in Delta-V is the amount of energy you put into it. If a spacecraft needs to enter lunar orbit, all spacecraft irrespective of shape, size and mass need the same Delta V (same acceleration). But if your rocket is heavier or if your engines are less efficient then you may have to burn a lot of fuel to attain the same Delta-V.
Like the above mentioned scenario, you spend more energy on climbing a mountain than on a flat surface to cover the same distance.
So what does delta V do with artemis mission’s new pathway?
Why new pathway:
Although the Orion spacecraft is slightly lighter than Apollo, the Orion Command Module is still larger than the Apollo's command module(CM). This made the Orion Service module(SM) smaller than the one Apollo has.
The Orion CM was designed larger to accommodate more crew and to last for longer space missions. This ultimately reduced the amount of fuel it could hold in SM.
So Orion has to look for a fuel efficient pathway. This is where the moon's gravity comes to play.
As there is a whole bunch of stuff behind this gravitational thing, I will better make it short.
The concept here is, instead of being mostly dependent on fuel like the Apollo mission, Artemis 1 made use of the moon's gravity to reach the moon’s orbit. Unlike the Apollo mission, Artemis had a larger CM, which gave room for longer missions.
But Gravity assist is not easy to achieve. The Orion craft has to wait for the right time to do the maneuvers. This increased the mission's duration, but thanks to its larger CM, Orion was able to last that long.
But Apollo had a smaller CM which made them the shortest route and more fuel consumption.
So as can understand, even if the delta V to get to the moon's orbit is the same for all spacecraft, Orion did not have enough fuel to be completely dependent upon itself. This is why it took a longer but efficient path.
But Apollo was not able to do this because of its small CM.
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