Abstract:
On October 23, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced the Artemis Acceleration Plan at a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center, clearly striving to return astronauts to the lunar surface within two years. According to the latest arrangement, the Artemis 4 mission is still scheduled to be implemented in 2028, when the first manned moon landing since the Apollo program will be achieved.
And landed near the south pole of the moon, laying the foundation for establishing a long-term presence on the lunar surface and a lunar base, and then heading towards a Mars mission.
Artemis 3, originally scheduled for a manned moon landing, was adjusted to a low-Earth orbit risk verification mission in the summer of 2027. Four astronauts took the Orion spacecraft to carry out the planned 14-day flight.
Officially, the mission will be divided into three steps, using three heavy rockets to launch three spacecraft respectively. First, Blue Origin will launch the Blue Moon Mark 2 lander test version into a circular orbit of about 440 kilometers and can stay in orbit for up to 30 days. Orion will be docked with the SLS rocket after it is lifted off. The astronauts will enter the test version's cockpit and spend about two days evaluating the cabin environment, control and life support systems.
Then the docking demonstration will be completed with the later-launched SpaceX Starship Version 3 test version. At this stage, the astronauts will not enter the Starship, and the focus will be on verifying the flight control, communications, integrated software and docking and separation dynamics under two different docking configurations.
After the docking test is completed, Orion will use the remaining window of up to 5 days to complete the crew survival system, docking sensors, acoustic thermal environment and human factors assessment, and conduct cell biology experiments, proof of concept of the process of returning lunar samples to Earth, and Earth-to-solar observations. In the end, the spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off California and was recovered by NASA personnel and the U.S. Navy.
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