Artemis III, the NASA shuttle and the SpaceX lander: back to the Moon
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For the return, in presence, of humanity to the Moon, we will witness unprecedented maneuvers. A story in which there will be a new spaceship, an orbital refueling station and repeated space rendezvous to refuel, orbiting the Earth even before our satellite. The successful outcome of Artemis III, the mission that will bring down the first woman among the craters that puncture those desolate lands, will first of all be made by NASA, obviously, Europe, but above all SpaceX, which will have to provide everything necessary to descend and ascend from the lunar south pole.
Interview
“Artemis 1? A success. And soon we will announce the crew of Artemis 2”
by Antonio Lo Campo
NASA tells, step by step, what will have to happen in two or three years. The landing date is still set at 2025. Quite optimistic given that the vehicle that will have to land and then bring the astronauts back has never flown yet. Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever to soar above a launch pad, is still being tested. But that’s not the only novelty that SpaceX will have to test before embarking the next pioneers. The astronauts will take off with the Orion capsule, which debuted in 2022 with the Artemis I mission, once in orbit around the Moon they will transfer to the lander. In short, two parallel missions, or even more, because the launches will be multiple.
Pit stop in orbit for SpaceX
First of all, the full. The journey is long and the system that SpaceX has designed provides for one to proceed step by step instead of, as with the Apollo missions, doing everything with a single launch. The Artemis III plan therefore envisages that a tank will be launched around the Earth, a cistern that will be filled gradually with several launches, operating automatic couplings in orbit and then returning the reusable rockets which will be filled again and launched again. A frenetic coming and going which we will witness during the months preceding the dispatch of the human expedition.
How many resupply drops will it take for a lunar mission? Hard to say, a document disclosed in 2020, when SpaceX’s Starship was preferred to Blue Origin and Dynetics projects, reported as many as 16 missions. Elon Musk later specified that no more than eight will be needed, more likely four.
Simulation of a Starship in-orbit refueling from a SpaceX video
Once enough propellant is loaded into the orbital refueling station, Starship will be able to take off, with an empty tank, on top of a Super Heavy rocket. She will dock at the base and, having refueled, she will be able to head for the Moon. this ofin orbit refueling it is a system that allows you to use fuel more efficiently and thus have a full tank after take-off, to carry heavier loads. The parking orbit around our satellite will be a very elongated ellipse. The “Near-rectilinear halo orbit” passes very close to the lunar south pole and then moves away up to 70,000 kilometers, chosen to pass over the lunar landing point, it is more stable, requires little fuel for maneuvers, and from which there it is a constant radio contact with the command center because the Earth never disappears behind the Moon, as did the Apollo command module. It has a period of about a week.
Diagram of the lunar orbit (Near rectilinear halo orbit) and the journey of the crew of Artemis III – Credits: Nasa
The Moon again
So far we have described the preparations, what is needed in anticipation of the arrival of the crew of Artemis III, which will finally be able to leave. Four astronauts will take off in the Orion capsule, leading the Space launch system. The flight company will therefore be NASA. Arriving in lunar orbit, Orion (whose maneuvering service module is provided by the European Space Agency) will then meet Starship, which is already waiting in orbit around the Moon. Orion will dock with the lander and two of the four crew members will switch vehicles, ready to descend while Orion will remain in orbit, as did the Apollo command module, with the other two. It will be the riskiest phase, in fact NASA expects that before Artemis III, SpaceX will demonstrate the reliability of Starship, with a “demo” mission with no one on board to test manoeuvres, descent and ascent.
All in less than three years, for a vehicle that hasn’t seen space yet. However, the debut is approaching. Musk himself let it be known, obviously with a tweet, that the first orbital launch attempt could take place in March 2023.
After Starship has “touched” with a vertical landing, taking advantage of the retrorockets, the two astronauts will descend along its 50-metre height no longer, as Neil Armstrong did, step after step, spelling out the words to be engraved in history, but with an elevator. Everything, the doors that open and the new explorers who sink their boots for the first time since 1972 on another celestial body, will be filmed with very high definition cameras in a live world broadcast everywhere, from the mega-screens of Times Square to smartphone displays in a suburb of Jakarta. This time, however, they will find a very different scenario waiting for them. This was underlined by NASA, which points out that at the south pole of the Moon the sun’s rays will be grazing, like a perennial sunset. The chosen place is the one near the Shackleton crater, a place where the light practically always shines, a bit like the Midnight Sun at the Earth’s poles, even if it remains very low on the horizon. And at the same time, there are craters where sunlight never reaches. One of the goals of the Artemis III astronauts will be to look for ice among the blackest shadows that exist, with lamps and navigation systems.
Space
Artemis, return to the moon. That’s why NASA chose the South Pole
by Matteo Marino
They will remain on the surface of the Moon for six and a half days. This is the time it takes for the Orion capsule to make one complete orbit. This too will be a record, the longest stay was that of Apollo 17, 75 hours, just over three days. It will be an appointment that cannot be postponed: Starship will leave again for the rendezvous in orbit with the NASA capsule returning to the South Pole, and the crew will be together again. It will take a few days to transfer the collected samples, rocks, dust and ice to the Moon. Then the fates of Starship and Orion will separate. The astronauts will leave lunar orbit to return to Earth. The fate of Starship will instead be decided. Will she have enough propellant to serve a second mission? Will she be sent back to Earth for a new supply? Or will she remain in orbit around the Moon waiting for what to do? Or maybe it will be decided that she should be scrapped in deep space. We bet that Elon Musk will find a “sustainable” solution.
NASA: Astronauts will be able to live and work on the moon by 2030
by Emilio Cozzi
Artemis III will have to be, in NASA’s plans, a kind of demonstration mission. In fact, in these years the construction of the Lunar Gateway will have to begin, an outpost, a space station that will remain in orbit around the Moon (the same elongated orbit of Artemis III) and which will act, as well as a small laboratory, much smaller than the ISS, as a port to land at, from which to embark on a lander to descend, and then return once the work on the lunar surface is finished.
Interview
The architect who designs spaces in Space
by Matteo Marino
And then there’s Mars, the ever-hovering target of space exploration. We now know that the Moon will be a stopover and the technologies developed to reach, study and perhaps create a settlement by exploiting in situ resources, such as water and regolith, will be indispensable in order to hope to land one day on the Red Planet. And the Starship itself, with its in-orbit refueling model that allows fuel and energy to be stored and used more efficiently, will be the solution for embarking astronauts and equipment on journeys that will last instead of days, months, even years, round trip back to the new frontier.
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