NASA has revealed where astronauts will land on the moon during the Artemis program’s next flight, selecting 13 potential areas at the moon’s south pole.
The Artemis mission, which is the first human mission to land on the Moon in nearly 50 years, is now due to begin as early as 2025, and it will be the first human landing on the Moon since the last Apollo missions in 1972. NASA has promised to bring people back to the surface of the Earth. The Moon is the first human deep space exploration program since the Apollo survival mission, but unlike Apollo, the Artemis mission is designed to create a permanent presence on and around the Moon.
NASA officials said they chose the landing sites using data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — an automated spacecraft that has been mapping the lunar surface since 2009 — as well as other lunar exploration.
“The selection of these regions means we are on the cusp of a giant leap towards returning humans to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo mission,” Mark Kerasich, Associate Associate Administrator of NASA Artemis Flight Development, explained in a statement. Unlike any upcoming mission, astronauts are venturing into dark regions previously undiscovered by humans and laying the groundwork for future long-range missions.”
NASA has already announced that it will return to the lunar south pole, but said the specific locations, all within six degrees of latitude of the south pole, were chosen because they provide safe landing sites close enough to permanently obscure areas to allow the crew to walk on the moon there as part of the Six and a Half Days on the Moon. This will allow astronauts “to collect samples and conduct scientific analysis in a no-compromise zone, providing important information about the depth, distribution and composition of water ice that has been confirmed at the south pole of the moon,” NASA said. Mike Sarafin, head of the NASA Artemis mission, said one of the main objectives of the flight is to test the Orion heat shield. The mission will follow four astronauts flying around the moon, but not landing, as early as 2024, and a human landing, the first since the last Apollo mission in 1972, is now scheduled for 2025.
