2022 Is Full of First Steps to the Moon

[Elderberry]

New York Times by Joey Roulette 1/1/2022

Debut rocket launches and robotic lunar missions will make the New Year a crucial prelude to putting astronauts back on the moon.

Robotic missions to Mars and advances in space tourism dominated the space activities of 2021. But in 2022, the moon is likely to stand out, as companies and governments launch various moon-bound spacecraft.

Most of those missions revolve around Artemis, NASA’s multibillion dollar effort to return astronauts to the moon later in the decade and conduct routine science missions on its surface in preparation for farther treks to Mars (a far more ambitious endeavor that will likely not happen in this decade). But before astronauts make the moonshot, a series of rocket tests and science missions without humans will need to be completed.

2022 is the year for those initial steps toward the moon. Two new rockets central to NASA’s lunar plans will launch to space for the first time, each with more power than the Saturn 5 rocket from the Apollo program. And other countries are expected to join the march to the moon as well.

NASA’s Gigantic Moon Rocket Debut

After years of development delays, NASA’s Space Launch System, or S.L.S., could make its first journey to space — without any humans — as early as March 2022.

The mission, called Artemis 1, will mark the first in a series of flights under NASA’s Artemis program by S.L.S., NASA’s centerpiece rocket system for getting moon-bound astronauts off Earth. For Artemis 1, S.L.S. will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to send a capsule named Orion around the moon and back, rehearsing a trajectory that will be performed by Artemis 2, the subsequent mission that is scheduled to carry astronauts sometime in 2024. The third mission, Artemis 3, will result in a moon landing.

More: https://www.nytimes.com/article/moon-missions-nasa-2022.html

[Elderberry]

NASA decides against putting crew on first SLS rocket launch, now delayed to 2019

Geek Wire by Alan Boyle on May 12, 2017

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/nasa-first-sls-em1/

NASA has broken the news to the White House and the world that speeding up the first crewed flight of its exploration launch system wouldn’t be worth the added cost and risk.

That means the first launch of NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System will fly without astronauts, as originally planned. And it will fly later than planned: NASA officials said today that liftoff will have to be delayed to 2019, although it’s too early to be more precise about the time frame.

The determination comes after weeks of discussions focusing on whether the flight plan for what’s known as Exploration Mission 1, or EM-1, could be tweaked to put people on board. Such a scenario would give the White House more to celebrate in President Donald Trump’s first term.

[Cyber Liberty]

Could be...and if NASA is in charge, the next person to walk on the moon will be speaking Mandarin.