NASA Unveils Candidate Landing Sites for Artemis Astronauts

After more than 50 years, we know where NASA astronauts will go.

There are 13 potential landing regions for the Artemis 3 mission. The south pole of the moon is where all the candidates are clustered.

Mark Kirasich, deputy associate administrator for the Artemis campaign development division at NASA, said during the news conference that they are of value to the scientific community. The people need to do things there.

Sarah Noble is the Artemis lunar science lead for NASA's Planetary Science Division. The science community has been talking about many of these places for a long time.

Two regions on the rim of de Gerlache Crater are included in the selected regions.

All of the landing sites within each region are within six degrees of the moon's south pole.

The logistical constraints NASA has focused on to date include how the site is lit, how easy it is for a team of astronauts to communicate with Earth, and the terrain. The discussions have been held with the company and government personnel because NASA isn't building the vehicle that will ferry astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface.

The first landing of the Starship will be at the south pole, so we have to pay close attention to the engineering and safety constraints of the mission.

The mission's launch date will determine where the astronauts can touch down because none of the 13 regions are always reachable.

Kirasich said that they would have a collection of sites that they could use during the launch period. We have a lot to learn between now and then and we don't know how many.

NASA will not rely on any scouts for additional information. The data that mission personnel need has already been provided by the LRO, according to Jacob Bleacher. He said that at this point in the mission, the spacecraft can't see the regions because it's in an elliptical circle.

The basis of availability of data was one of the things that went into some of the considerations. We have targeted these locations in the past, but we can't do it again with the lunar recon

The experience of the 12 men who have walked on the moon will not be the same as that of the Artemis 3 astronauts.

We've never explored this part of the moon. We're going somewhere completely different, with different and ancient geologic terrains, because the Apollo sites were in the central part of the near side.

The south pole is a good place to go because of the fact that the lunar surface is locked in the stark cold of permanently shadowed regions.

Scientists hope that studying water and othervolatile compounds that evaporate away will teach them about the relationship with Earth. The exploration-minded want the ice to support future humans on the moon or be used to make rocket fuel.

The Artemis 1 test flight for NASA's lunar exploration program is just over a week away. The launch pad for that mission is at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The moon exploration program will rely on the Space Launch System megarocket and the crew capsule in order to reach the moon. If everything goes well, NASA will send astronauts to the moon on Artemis 2 before the new moon landing, which could happen in the 20th century.

Bleacher said that he felt like he was on a roller coaster that was about to pass the top of the hill. We are going on a ride to the moon.

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