Artemis Stuff

[Yazata]

Well. Orion is back on Earth after what appears to have been a flawless landing.

https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1601995737449263104

I've made some critical remarks about Artemis in the past, regarding its cost, delays and seeming lack of imagination. So in interests of fairness, I need to also say that I am hugely impressed by the total start-to-finish success of the Artemis 1 mission, the very first flights of these vehicles. Everyone in aerospace knows how hard it is to get this kind of success the very first time a new rocket flies.

The idea of flying astronauts on this the second time it flies, on another very similar lunar orbit mission which is the plan, no longer seems fanciful. If the vehicle behaves as well next time, it should be a big success.

(NASA photos)

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[Yazata]

Orion in San Diego with its red flotation bags still inflated. Lots of rather superficial reentry damage visible, but apparently nothing that would endanger astronauts aboard. Remains to be seen how easily it could be cleaned up and refurbished for reuse.

I'm still very pleased and impressed!

(Photo by Jack Beyer of nasaspaceflight.com)

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[Yazata]

The 4-person Artemis II crew was announced this morning, and one of them is Christina! Another is Victor Glover, another of my favorite astronauts (he was on Crew-1, the second crewed Dragon flight). The other two crewmembers are the Commander, Space Station veteran Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on his first flight.

This will be the first crewed Artemis flight and will basically repeat the Artemis I trajectory, looping around the Moon without landing, except with people aboard this time.

https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-ii/

Your Artemis II crew posing next to an Orion capsule
(nasa photo):

(A good looking group)

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[Yazata]

Next week NASA will be announcing the company that will design and manufacture their Artemis Moon Car.

I'm still curious whether NASA will go with an Apollo-style dune-buggy design, or whether they choose a fully-enclosed pressurized design like Toyota is designing for JAXA.

Artist's conception of astronauts on an off-road extraterrestrial joy-ride from NASA.

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[Yazata]

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-j...nar-rover/

The JAXA pressurized Moon car is still alive!

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Japan’s Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Masahito Moriyama have signed an agreement to advance sustainable human exploration of the Moon.

Japan will design, develop, and operate a pressurized rover for crewed and uncrewed exploration on the Moon. NASA will provide the launch and delivery of the rover to the Moon as well as two opportunities for Japanese astronauts to travel to the lunar surface.

Today, President Biden and Prime Minister Kishida also announced, “a shared goal for a Japanese national to be the first non-American astronaut to land on the Moon on a future Artemis mission, assuming important benchmarks are achieved.”

The pressurized lunar rover is intended to enable astronauts to travel farther and work for longer periods on the lunar surface. The signing took place April 9 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Along with Nelson and Moriyama, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) President Hiroshi Yamakawa also participated in the signing.

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