The Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket ever built, is about to propel the Orion spaceship further into space than any human-built vehicle intended to carry astronauts has ventured before.
The mission will serve as a test before future Artemis missions send humans to the moon and beyond, in the process delivering milestone like the first woman and person of color to walk on the lunar surface.
The Artemis 1 mission isn't all about breaking records. A series of small satellites will be dropped on the moon by the SLS as it travels towards it. The SLS is able to host 17 of these small science experiments, but the Artemis 1 is made up of 10 units.
These tiny cubesats could have a big impact on science. Results will be collected to help guide future projects, protect astronauts, and help monitor our world.
NASA's Artemis 1 SLS megarocket has had a long road to travel.
A miniature satellite with great potential for space-based science, exploration, engineering support, Earth observation, and relay communication is called a cubesat.
The efficiency, low cost, and compatibility of cubesats make them extraordinary. cubesats are usually measured and classified by 'units' with each unit representing a cube of 10 centimeters (3.93 inches) each side.
The majority of cubesats on the Artemis 1 mission are 6U in size, stringing together six of these units resulting in dimensions around that of 7.8 in x 3.93 in x 13 in.
An infrastructure in space on and around the moon is one of the key goals of the Artemis missions. The main watchword is'sustainability.'
The lunar ice cube 6U cubesat was developed by Morehead State University and NASA.
The cubesat will be able to detect water and other resources on the moon and above the lunar surface in the future. The amount of raw materials needed to be carried into space is reduced by in-situ resources.
The water on the moon could be used to make rocket fuel, which could be used to return to Earth or go further into the solar system.
The ice cube will have a seven-hour flight around the moon. In order to protect its instruments from solar radiation, a small garage door opens and allows just an hour of observations of the lunar surface.
The water on the moon is mostly in the form of ice, but there is a NASA instrument that can investigate the distribution of this water on the moon.
Water can be detected in the moon's exosphere. The regolith on the moon is similar to the soil on Earth.
This will help map the changes that the moon is going through.
IceCube and several other Artemis 1 cubesats will be looking at the moon.
Designed by researchers and students at Arizona State University, the lunar hydrogen map will investigate hydrogen abundances on the moon.
This will include creating a map of hydrogen at a spatial scale of around 6 miles, as well as assessing the amount of this element locked up in water-ice lying in deep lunar craters.
The LunaH-Map's science mission will last 60 days and will take it as close as 3 to 6 miles from the lunar surface. The impact crater at the moon's south pole will be the center of this circle.
The main instrument at LunaH-Map is a neutron detector that uses a material called Cs2YLiCl6:Ce to detect neutrons that are locked up in atomic nuclei with protons.
During its two-month operation LunaH-Map, NASA will map the hydrogen content of the entire south pole of the moon.
The moon will be mapped by the 6U cubesat LunIR, formerly known as SkyFire.
LunIR will deploy from the European Space Agency and contains technology that will help to understand the composition of the lunar surface and how it interacts with space
This data could help in the selection of landing sites for future moon missions as well as the assessment of potential risks to astronauts going to the moon for longer stays.
LunIR will perform maneuvers after its flyby to help design future space missions.
In order to prove that lunar landers can come in all sizes and costs, CubeSat set out to demonstrate the outstanding moon exploration technologies.
The Japanese Aeroscape Exploration Agency created 6U cubesat, which weighs 28.7 lbs in total, and is powered by a disposable solid rocket motor, which will land on the moon.
The rocket will be thrown into the air at about 98 feet per second (30 meters per second) and a two-lobed airbag will be deployed to cushion it.
OMOTENASHI will measure lunar surface radiation and investigate soil mechanics once on the moon.
The electrical charge that is proportional to the force the material experiences is created by these devices.
Artemis 1 cubesats will be looking at other objects around the world.
NEA Scout is a robotic mission that will fly by and return data from an asteroid.
NEA Scout will deploy from the SLS after it has launched the Orion craft towards the moon, beginning a two year journey for the 6U-sized cubesat to a target asteroid
The solar sail is a thin and light material that uses the sun's rays to propel a small craft.
The unfurled sail is supported by four metallic booms and can reach a size of 900 square feet. The large surface area is needed to capture a lot of photons, each of which only gives a small amount of thrust.
It will be able to identify the asteroid once it is between 25,000 and 31,000 miles from its target. At a distance of between 62 and 75 miles (100 to 120 km) from the asteroid, NEA Scout will use its camera, NEACam, to take pictures to send back to Earth.
The asteroid's position in space, shape, and rotation, as well as its surrounding dust and debris field, will be determined by this. Future missions that aim to land on NEAs may be helped by this information.
The University of Tokyo helped create the EQUilibriUm lunar-earth point 6U Spacecraft with assistance from the JAXA. It's goal is to understand the radiation in the space environment.
There will be low-energy trajectory control techniques used by EQUULEUS, including a water propulsion system with a low thrust that uses very little propellant fluid to sit the craft in an ellipse between the earth and the moon.
The cubesat will be able to observe the inner region of the magnetosphere, known as the plasmaosphere.
As well as helping us understand low-energy trajectory control techniques and lunar flybys in the Earth- moon region, EQUULEUS could provide vital information that protects electronics and astronauts during long-term space missions.
The Artemis 1 cubesat is about to collect information that could be used to protect astronauts.
Scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley will be able to understand the effects of radiation on organisms in space thanks to the BioSentinel project.
The goal of the mission is to understand how high-energy radiation can cause breaks in the cells of all living organisms, including humans.
The way in which yeast's genes are repaired is similar to how humans do it.
Once BioSentinel is outside of Earth's magnetosphere, two strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae will be triggered to grow, which will help protect us from solar radiation.
After 18 months, the 6U cubesat will fly past the moon to rendezvous with the sun. The last time deep space was used to send organisms was 40 years ago.
After it leaves Earth's atmosphere, the cubesat will be circling the sun.
CuSP will be studying radiation from the stars, solar winds, and solar events which can have effects on Earth such as interfering with radio communications, damaging satellite electronics, and even knocking our power grids.
The 6U cubesat has three instruments that can measure space weather before it reaches Earth, which could cause a harmful storm.
High-energy solar particles are counted by the Miniaturized Electron and Proton Telescope, as well as the Vector Helium Magnetometer.
The environment of space between the sun and Earth will be tracked by the CuSP instruments. CuSP gives researchers a way to test how a network of space monitoring cubesats would function.
One of the most interesting journeys to the launchpad of all of Artemis 1's secondary payloads has been taken by the cubesat Team Miles.
The project was selected to join up with the SLS after it was entered into NASA's CubeQuest Challenge.
The team leader describes the project as a "drag race to the moon" and says that the team will use a mixture of low- and high- frequencies to propel their craft.
The 6U-sized cubesat flown by a sophisticated onboard computer system will be testing software for radio communications with Earth.
The Italian Space Agency designed and built a 6U cubesat called "ArgoMoon" that will fly with Artemis 1. It will be one of the first European cubesats to leave Earth's atmosphere.
ArgoMoon will demonstrate the ability to perform operations by the ICPS, but it will also collect data from the stage as it launches its other cubesat secondary payloads.
The fact that ArgoMoon will record images of the ICPS as it performs these duties means that its contribution to Artemis 1 could help define the history of one of the most important missions in the history of space exploration.
The most powerful rocket in the world wouldn't be able to launch the Artemis mission.
The craft intended for humans will travel farther into space than any other craft.
Artemis is open in a new tab. NASA will be up and running in 2020.
The Artemis 1 is about the CubeSat Payload. The space center is in Houston.
There is a lunar ice mission to locate and study resources needed for sustained presence on the moon. NASA released a statement.
"LunaH-Map: University-Built CubeSat to Map Water-Ice on the Moon (opens in new tab)." NASA (2016).
"LunaH-map (opens in new tab)." Arizona State University (2022).
The secondary payload was selected by NASA for the LunIR cubeSat. The NASA website was recently updated.
"EQUULEUS and OMOTENASHI." eoPortal (2022).
"NEA Scout (opens in new tab)." NASA (2022).
BioSentinel is in a new tab. NASA 2022.
What is a Picosatellite and what is it called? There is a database of sats
"Argo Moon opens in a new tab."
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