Will it be in 2024 when the first woman steps on the Moon?
Walking on the moon is raising the wanderlust to the nth power , the summun of the trip. And that is the raison d'être of the newly updated NASA's Artemis program: the first woman and the next man to walk on the Moon They will go up, according to the planned plan, in a spaceship headed for the largest satellite in the Solar System in 2024.
Last year, Jessica Meir and Christina Koch they staged the first all-female spacewalk , marking a before and after in history. Now, the 16 astronauts NASA -in front of the 31 men who are part of the crew - prepare to star in the next big milestone.
Edwin E. Aldrin Jr, pilot of the Apollo 11 mission
While 11 of them are already veterans, five have joined NASA in the class of 2017 and they are still looking forward to their first mission -which could well be Artemis-, since they finished their training a few months ago.
Although female representation has increased in recent years, women that are part of the american space agency they still are a minority ; but a minority that will not only have their representation in the adventure that will take place in four years, but will play a key role in the Artemis III mission.
Why 2024? According to NASA in the official statement, it is not an arbitrary date. “It is the most ambitious date possible. The United States now leads in space exploration; however, as more countries and companies aim for the moon , the United States needs to land as soon as possible to maintain and consolidate that leadership , as well as to prepare for a historic first human mission to Mars point.
It is necessary to remember that 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the landing of Man on the Moon. From the apollo 11 mission of NASA there have been endless technological advances and scientific discoveries that will allow astronauts to carry out a more precise and deep exploration.
In 2019, the first female space walk took place
As NASA has communicated, if the Artemis plan is fulfilled in 2024, this historic event will be the prelude to a larger space goal: to explore Mars.
For the past 20 years, astronauts have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, located 408 kilometers from Earth, in order to prepare for greater challenges, such as walking on the red planet.
Sending explorers to the Moon -located 384,400 kilometers from the earth's surface- and, subsequently, to Mars - some 225 million kilometers away - not only requires effective program management, but also significant funding for the development of modern systems and mission operations.
“The basis of our return to the Moon is the NASA Deep Space Transportation: Orion spacecraft, SLS rocket, HLS and EGS facilities including a modernized spaceport. The Orion spacecraft, powered by a service module provided by the ESA (European Space Agency), has been specifically designed for human operations of up to four crew in deep space,” the statement explains.
View of the Moon from Apollo 11
"Orion's first test flight, Exploration Flight Test-1, was on December 5, 2014 . The mission of four and a half hours demonstrated Orion's space capability in high Earth orbit, tested the spacecraft's heat shield, to the extent possible, during entry into the Earth's atmosphere, and demonstrated the capsule's recovery systems."
And it is that although EFT-1 was unmanned, the orion capsule flew higher and faster than any spaceship destined to transport people in more than 40 years. On the other hand, NASA completed the final series of Orion parachute tests , decisive for the lunar mission, in September 2018.
The new race to the moon
“The system includes 11 parachutes. During the course of eight tests rating on the Y an Arizona Army Proving Ground , engineers have evaluated the performance of Orion's parachute system during normal landing sequences, as well as in numerous failure scenarios and a wide variety of potential aerodynamic conditions to ensure that astronauts can return safely from missions to deep space”, they point out.
It is not yet known who will be chosen for the Artemis mission