What are the differences between Apollo and Artemis?

It has been fifty years since man set foot on the moon. An eternity when you see the technological improvements developed in the meantime. The Saturn 5 of the Apollo mission remains the most powerful rocket to have lifted off. It was to be overtaken on Saturday September 3 by the SLS, a monster of thrust with its 4,000 tonnes at take-off, with marked differences from its ancestor. “The cockpit and the controls are of the latest generation and the materials more modern. But if you look closely at the heat shield, it’s just a modernized version of the one used for Apollo at the time.“, underlines Kathy Schubert, deputy director of flight systems at the Nasa Glenn Center.

The Artemis mission also provides for 50% more spacious rockets, capable of carrying out longer missions, with one more person. The vision of the interest of a lunar expedition is different. “In the 1960s it was a race against the Russians and the scientific part of exploring the Moon was rather incidental, whereas now we are going back to the Moon in a sustainable way to see how we can live there and exploit its resources“, analyzes Philippe Deloo, head of the European SLS module of the European Space Agency. A great common point persists: the immense challenge of making this trip a success.