In the coming weeks, the first mission will be launched NASA’s Artemis program, which aims for a return of humans, including a woman and a person of color, on the Moon in 2025. The ultimate objective of this program is to establish a sustainable base on the Moon where we will refine the technologies that will be necessary to go to Mars. The Moon becoming one springboard to conquer Mars.
Fifty years after successfully allowing Americans to set foot on the moon for a few hours, NASA now aims to return there in a more sustainable way. Its program, named Artemis in honor of the goddess of the Moon and twin sister of Apollo, which inspired the name of the first American lunar program, plans to install a station in orbit around the Moon, then to erect a permanent base on its soil in order to acquire true autonomy of life in deep space.
In the days of Apollo, the Americans vied with the Soviets in a race to the Moon. “Once this race was won, they left the Moon. This time, it’s a return to settle there. We want to equip ourselves with technologies that will allow us not to carry out missions of a week, but of several months on the Moon. To consider the exploration of deep space like Mars, we need to know how to use the resources in situ. The essence of the Artemis program is to develop and demonstrate that we have these technologies,” notes Gilles Leclerc, Director General of Space Exploration at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
For his part, astrophysicist Robert Lamontagne, professor at the University of Montreal, still sees a certain geopolitical emulation in the Artemis program, because “the Russians are preparing to send a robotic probe [Luna 25]to the South Pole of the Moon in an effort to find ice there,” he notes. This Russian mission would be the first step of a larger program planned in cooperation with China to send astronauts to our natural satellite.
The other novelty of the Artemis program that NASA is highlighting is that it will include diversity. “The Apollo astronauts were all men, ex-military, test pilots. This time, NASA said Artemis would send “the first woman and the first person of color” to the moon, Leclerc points out.
Although led by NASA, the Artemis program involves the participation of several international partners, such as the European Space Agency, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and the CSA, as well as the collaboration of the private sector.
The Artemis program will take place in several stages. The first, the mission Artemis I, plans the launch next February of the spacecraft Orion using the Space Launch System (SLS) launch vehicle. This is an uncrewed test flight in orbit around the Moon that will demonstrate the SLS. “NASA had to develop a new space transportation system, a new launcher,” says Mr. Leclerc. The SLS launcher is indeed much more powerful than the Saturn V rocket missions Apollo since it will be able to exert a thrust 15% stronger than the latter. Its propulsion force can even be increased according to the needs of the missions by adding thrusters and stages.
The ship Orion was designed to accommodate a crew of four to six people. In addition to being equipped with the most advanced life support systems, it will include a service module that will carry air, nitrogen and water, as well as power and propulsion systems.
The mission Artemis II will consist of a trip to orbit around the Moon with a crew of four astronauts. This manned “qualification” flight should take place by May 2024. A Canadian astronaut will be part of the crew, who will notably check the operation of the flight instruments and the guidance and navigation systems. During this mission, Orion will first circle the Earth twice in order to reach the speed necessary to reach the Moon. It will describe an elongated orbit around the Moon. And as it passes behind the far side of the Moon, its gravity will allow it to accelerate enough to return to Earth.
Only during the mission Artemis III, planned for 2025, that astronauts will again tread the lunar soil. To ensure the smooth running of all missions on the surface of the Moon, NASA has planned to install in orbit around the Moon the lunar space station Gateway which will be, as its name suggests, a footbridge, a foot- to earth from which the astronauts will explore the surface of the Moon. This station will describe an eccentric orbit around the Moon which will allow it to be always visible from Earth.
The occupancy volume of this station will be six times smaller than that of the International Space Station (ISS), specifies Mr. Leclerc. Four astronauts will be able to stay there for periods not exceeding three months. This lunar station will therefore not be permanently occupied like the ISS.
The Gateway station will consist of several modules, the first two being the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO). ), will be launched around 2024-2025. They will also serve as a relay and control center for missions to the Moon.
Canadian contribution
The Gateway station will also be equipped with the intelligent robotic system Canadarm3, which will consist of an arm 8.5 meters long, a small agile arm, a set of specialized tools and state-of-the-art software allowing maintaining, repairing and inspecting the station, catching craft sent from Earth, assisting astronauts on spacewalks and conducting scientific experiments in orbit. All of these tasks must be able to be performed without human intervention, as there will not always be astronauts on the station. And communication delays will not allow real-time control of the system.
“Since the lunar station will not be permanently inhabited, it will need a lot of autonomy, especially since it will be 400,000 km from the Earth, while the ISS is only 400 km above our heads. The robotic system will therefore have to be smarter, more autonomous,” emphasizes Mr. Leclerc.
“NASA has given us a leading role for robotics on the Gateway. Our partnership with NASA goes back more than 40 years. Canada had provided the original Canadarm for the space shuttle, then the Canadarm2 which is still in operation on the ISS,” he notes.
Canada will also provide a small rover that will carry an American experiment, and conversely, small autonomous lunar landers designed by Americans and Europeans will transport Canadian experiments to the Moon. In exchange for its cooperation, Canada will be entitled to the participation of two astronauts.
The Artemis program is also a springboard to Mars, as much because it will make it possible to learn to live in complete autonomy far from Earth, as thanks to its Gateway space station, from which departures to the red planet. “It would be extremely expensive to take off from the Earth’s surface because of the Earth’s pull and the speed you have to achieve. It would be easier if we were already in space, like orbiting the moon. We could therefore build and assemble small cargo ships on the Moon or in orbit around it and then send them to Mars before the arrival of possible astronauts, because they will not be able to transport all that they will need in a one trip,” says Mr. Lamontagne.
It should be possible to learn to live completely autonomously on the Moon, because scientists have evidence indicating that there is water ice on the Moon, or more precisely in the bottom of certain craters. This water would come from comets – these blocks of ice and gas – having struck the Moon in the past.
Researchers only hope to find water at the poles, however, because they are constantly in shadow and extremely cold regions. The lunar surface, which is plunged into darkness, indeed sees its temperature drop to -170°C, with peaks at -230°C in the bottom of the craters, while that exposed to the Sun reaches a temperature of +127°C. “It is the absence of atmosphere and greenhouse gases around the Moon that allows such temperature differences between day and night,” explains Mr. Lamontagne.
One thing is certain, the presence of water will greatly facilitate the establishment of a permanent base on the Moon, because it will be possible to drink it and extract oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to serve as fuel.