The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) expects to land two astronauts on the Moon in late 2025 or 2026 as part of the Artemis 3 (Artemis-3) mission. According to Interfax, this was announced by the head of the US space department, Bill Nelson.
“We expect Artemis 3 to launch in a year (after Artemis 2), it could happen in late 2025, it could happen in 2026,” Nelson said during a US House of Representatives subcommittee hearing on fiscal 2024 appropriations. year.
“Then we will send the crew to lunar orbit, they will dock with the SpaceX lander, and two of the four crew members will descend to the surface and conduct a six-day mission on it,” the agency head added.
NASA previously announced plans to conduct the Artemis 3 mission in 2025.
The Artemis program (“Artemis”) was made public in September 2020. Its main goal is the return of American astronauts to the lunar surface more than 50 years after the last mission, the construction of a near-lunar station and the preparation of conditions for the possible colonization of the Moon in the future.
The first mission of the Artemis 1 program (“Artemis-1”) was carried out at the end of last year – on November 16, the super-heavy SLS rocket launched the unmanned Orion spacecraft into orbit, which circled the Moon twice within 25 days, approaching its surface at a distance of about 130 km . In addition, he spent six days in a deep retrograde orbit around the Moon. On December 11, the ship splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
As part of the second mission of the Artemis 2 program, which is currently scheduled for November 2024, the Orion manned spacecraft with a crew of four will have to go into lunar orbit, make several orbits around it and return the crew safely to Earth.
Source: Rosbalt
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