It's always near the horizon, and can cast long shadows over the ground. Planetary scientists suspect ice and other valuable resources are found in this profoundly cold, dark region. But for NASA's new moon endeavors, a mission called Artemis, astronauts will land inside a crater at the lunar south pole. Credit: Draper / NASA The lunar south pole is a strange, shadowy placeĪpollo astronauts landed on the bright, sunlit side of the moon. The technology matches camera images to known satellite images of the lunar surface. "There's a pretty good chance you're going to have a bad day," said Percy.Īn example, from an aerial view of the Mohave Desert, of how NASA's lunar "terrain relative navigation" will work. It will ensure astronauts are headed to the right place, and help the lander avoid any craters or boulders.Īccidentally landing on a boulder could be catastrophic. This modern technology, called "terrain relative navigation," uses a camera to map the ground during the descent. Importantly, astronauts will have the ability to take control of the craft, like Neil Armstrong did, if the system makes an error.īut today's astronauts will have significantly more help as they make their final approach. They'll rely on the lunar lander's computers to calculate how the spacecraft must fire thrusters to stay on course for a specific landing spot on the moon. So NASA must still generally navigate like they did during the Apollo missions over fifty years ago. "GPS doesn't work at the moon," said NASA's Percy. But there's no such satellite network encircling the moon. government-run satellite navigation system, to provide precise landing coordinates as planes and other craft move through the sky. "It's literally a one-shot thing," Palotai said.Īn artist's conception of an Artemis astronaut stepping onto the lunar surface. But the mission, generally, can't afford any major mishaps. NASA does provide enough fuel to tackle unexpected things - like a crucial flight correction - said Percy. "There's nothing slowing you down except your engine."Ĭrucially, this gives astronauts smaller margins for error. "There's no atmosphere, so we cannot float down," Palotai explained. This means that slowing down is dependent on firing out bounties of propellent. But the moon's atmosphere is extremely thin, comparable to the far outskirts of Earth's atmosphere, where the International Space Station orbits. When spacecraft land on Earth, they use the atmosphere to slow down, as we saw when Space Shuttles and Apollo capsules returned. Stunning photo captures space station crossing the moon in jaw-dropping detail NASA waited 50 years to unseal these precious moon rocks The space race forged immortal rock and roll guitars How NASA's new megarocket stacks up against its legendary predecessor "It is challenging - like a lot of the things we do," Tom Percy, a lead Human Landing System engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, told Mashable. Whatever crafts ultimately land on the moon will endure daunting, but surmountable, challenges ahead. NASA has already selected the space exploration company SpaceX to build its first moon lander, and recently asked other companies to propose more landers. "It is challenging - like a lot of the things we do." "Just because we went there 50 years ago does not make it a trivial endeavor," Csaba Palotai, the program chair of space sciences in the Department of Aerospace, Physics and Space Sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology, told Mashable. Yet landing people on the moon still remains a hugely ambitious feat. The space agency has already rolled its massive new megarocket to the launchpad in preparation for its first, fiery test launch. Now half a century later, NASA aims to soon return astronauts to the moon, as early as 2025. In fast succession, five more Apollo missions would land on the lunar surface over the next few years. Thankfully, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down, and walked, on the moon in the summer of 1969. Meanwhile, errant alarms sounded in the module, and a gauge showed they would soon run out of fuel. The spacecraft's computer had guided the crew to a boulder-strewn field, so the legendary pilot had to quickly steer away. At only some 1,600 feet above the moon's surface, Neil Armstrong grabbed control of the Apollo moon lander.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |