Enlarge image
SLS rocket on Wednesday launch
Photo: THOM BAUR / REUTERS
First of all, it only goes close to the moon, or more precisely up to 100 kilometers from the moon: on Wednesday, with the successful launch of the Start Launch System (SLS) with the "Orion" space capsule, NASA's first Artemis mission started, which should last around 42 days.
There are also no astronauts on board, but radiation measurement dummies and a dummy.
However, people could already be living and working on the moon in this decade.
That's what Howard Hu, head of NASA's "Orion" program, promised in a BBC program.
Before 2030, according to Hu, people would definitely be working on the moon for “a long time”, living in habitats and using rovers for locomotion – although it remains unclear which period of time Hu specifically meant.
NASA will send people to the moon's surface to do science, Hu said.
It was already known that the Artemis program also aims for the presence of people on the moon, i.e. the stay of astronauts in habitats.
However, there has not yet been any clarity as to when this should happen.
On Wednesday, the launch of "Artemis I" was successful after it had to be postponed several times due to technical problems and adverse weather.
The follow-up mission "Artemis II", which is planned for 2024, is not yet scheduled to land on the moon either.
This should then take place during the third mission, which is announced in 2025 at the earliest.
Then humans would set foot on the moon for the first time since 1972.
The European space agency Esa is also involved in the Artemis program.
In Germany, for example, large parts of the service and propulsion module for the »Orion« capsule are being built.
The German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne made two radiation measurement dummies for the mission.
fdi