Author Topic: NASA announced the first Artemis delivery assignments -SpaceX will launch cargo to the Moon!  (Read 491 times)

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Tesmanian  by Evelyn Arevalo January 24, 2020

NASA has announced the first sixteen payloads that will be delivered to the lunar surface next year under the Artemis program, that will launch the first woman and next man to the moon by the year 2024. Before that, NASA wants to send cargo deliveries that will pave the way for crewed missions. The sixteen payloads scheduled to launch in June/July 2021, range from technology to scientific experiments. SpaceX was one of the several companies selected to conduct this mission under a NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract. NASA officials wrote in a statement: "We’ve finished the work of assigning science and technology payloads to each of the initial CLPS deliveries. This step allows our commercial partners to complete the important technical integration work necessary to fly the payloads and brings us a step closer to launching and landing the investigations that will help us better understand the Moon ahead of sending the first woman and next man to the Moon."

Out of the sixteen payloads SpaceX will launch six, one of those is a robotic Nova-C lander that will be launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The Nova-C lander is manufactured by a private Houston-based company called Intuitive Machines, that was awarded $77 million from NASA to develop the lander that will carry up to five payloads. These will be launched onto a dark spot on the Moon called Oceanus Procellarum (shown below).

NASA's priority is to take two astronauts down near the lunar's south pole by 2024 and build up a sustainable human presence on and around the moon's orbit by 2028. Landers help the agency investigate the terrain and take valuable cargo that will be needed to build a base. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in a statement:

    "We're honored that Intuitive Machines selected Falcon 9, SpaceX’s tried-and-true workhorse, for this pioneering mission to the moon. Our partnership with Intuitive Machines is a great example of two private companies working together with NASA to advance space exploration."

More: https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/nasa-announced-the-first-artemis-delivery-assignments