NASA Gives A Peek of Artemis 2 Booster For Ambitious Moon Mission. More than 50 years after NASA’s Apollo 11 launched for the Moon, the American space agency rolled out the Space Launch System (SLS) Artemis 2 booster at Michoud Assembly Facility, in New Orleans. The booster is 212-feet long and has four RS-25 engines. It was loaded onto NASA’s Pegasus barge for shipping to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA’s Ambitious Moon Mission
NASA is set to launch the Artemis 2 mission with four astronauts onboard for the Moon in 2026. This mission will once again take humans to the lunar surface, the second time since 1969. It aims to send the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon in September 2025. NASA wants to establish the foundation for long-term scientific exploration on the Moon.
Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, said in January 2024 that they will return to the Moon like never before. He highlighted that the safety of their astronauts is NASA’s top priority. Nelson said the success of their early missions depends on commercial and international partnerships to further NASA’s reach and understanding of humanity’s place in the solar system.
NASA Aims For The Moon
Through Artemis, NASA wants to establish a permanent presence on the Moon, that too near the lunar south pole. Scientists believe this region of the Moon contains water and ice. However, samples collected by Apollo astronauts in 1969 appeared to be dry.
But another NASA investigation found water ice below the Moon’s surface. Moreover, the 1998 Lunar Prospector found the highest concentrations of water ice in shadowed craters in the South Pole.
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Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator of Exploration Systems Development, and manager of NASA’s Moon to Mars Program Officer, said Artemis is a long-term exploration campaign to research the Moon. They will prepare for future human missions to Mars. Kshatriya explained that they must get it right to safely carry out these missions.
