Fly me to the Moon: NASA's Orion spacecraft prepares for mission, Israelis aboard
The spacecraft's assembly is almost complete, needing only to be integrated with NASA's Space Launch System.
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Artist's rendition of NASA's Orion spacecraft, set to take part in the Artemis I mission.(photo credit: NASA/FLICKR) NASA's Orion spacecraft is getting ready to launch on the Artemis I mission to the Moon, featuring Israeli, German and American non-human passengers. Footage
was shared by NASA over Twitter of the spacecraft being moved to the
Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center. Its assembly is
almost complete, needing only to be integrated with NASA's Space Launch
System. The widely
anticipated Artemis I mission is set to launch in January 2022, marking
NASA's return to planned lunar missions, which itself is marked by
symbolically naming the missions Artemis, the mythological twin of
Apollo, for whom the previous lunar missions were named. No humans will be on board the Orion when it launches, but rather
three non-human mannequins. The first, a full human stand-in named Commander Moonikin Campos following an online poll, will make sure the spacecraft itself is safe for humans.  A mockup of NASA's Orion spacecraft. (credit: Wikimedia Commons) The
other two are female-bodied model human torsos known as phantoms. Named
Zohar and Helga by NASA's partners in the mission, the Israel Space
Agency (ISA) and German Aerospace Center (DLR) respectively, their job
is to take part in the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE),
which will provide data on radiation levels in lunar missions as well as
testing the usability of the AstroRad vests. The
vests, made by Tel Aviv-based company StemRad in partnership with
aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin, were designed as personal
protective equipment to shield astronauts from space radiation exposure
outside the Earth's magnetosphere. Having been made in partnership between an American and Israeli company, the vest proudly displays the flags of both countries. The
vests have already been sent to the International Space Station for the
Comfort and Human factors AstroRad Radiation Garment Evaluation
(CHARGE) study meant to test the vest in a microgravity environment.
This study will help improve the vest's fit and function. Both
tests are being conducted by NASA in partnership with the Israel Space
Agency (ISA) and could see the AstoRad become a critical component for
NASA's future space exploration plans. Israel
is also advancing its own planned lunar mission, however. This mission,
dubbed Beresheet 2, will be a follow-up to the 2019 one which saw the
Jewish state attempt to become the fourth country to attempt a Moon
landing.  Israeli scientists inspect Beresheet in Yehud (credit: RONEN ZVULUN / REUTERS)It
was almost a success, but the mission control lost contact with the
lander just minutes before landing, causing it to crash. Nonetheless,
the lander did make it to the lunar surface, making Israel the fourth
country to accomplish this, and making the firm behind the lander,
SpaceIL, the first private entity to do so. Undeterred, the Beresheet 2 mission was announced days later. Now, Israel hopes to partner with one of its new regional allies, the UAE, to advance this mission forward. “It
would be wonderful if we could develop a space program that would be a
combination of Israel and the Arab world,” SpaceIL’s chairman Morris
Kahn told the Global Investment Forum in Dubai on Wednesday. “I
would welcome it – if it fits in with the program the Emirates have.
They have an ambitious program,” Kahn, a respected philanthropist, said
at the conference jointly organized by The Jerusalem Post and the Khaleej Times – adding that such a joint initiative would be the “pinnacle of my achievement and my involvement in space.” Both
the UAE and Israel have among the most advanced space programs in the
Middle East. Abu Dhabi’s “New Hope” probe reached Mars’ orbit in
February of this year while Israel’s original Beresheet mission entered
the moon’s orbit in 2019. The UAE’s $10 billion investment pledge in
Israel last March earmarked funds for space projects. The advancing of lunar missions also comes following new discoveries made about Earth's only celestial satellite. Recent
findings regarding Moon rocks brought back to the planet by China – the
first rocks brought back in four decades – showed evidence of volcanic
activity on the Moon, according to a study published in the academic
periodical Science. Prior
missions by the US and USSR that recovered rocks did note that there
was volcanic activity there, but could not find evidence of anything
happening more recently than 2.8 billion years ago. These new findings
present evidence of this happening less than 1 billion years ago,
filling a major gap in our understanding of lunar geology. Further missions to the Moon could help close that gap even further.  PLEASE RECOMMEND THIS PAGE AND FOLLOW US AT: |
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