Artemis 1 - NASA Mission To The Moon

The NASA space mission that will send people back to the moon has been dubbed "Artemis," the twin sister of Apollo. And the spacecraft that will take us there is called “Orion”, named after one of the biggest constellations in the night sky.
These missions will allow us to explore more of the Moon than ever before, paving the way for long-term presence in lunar orbit.

Reference

#keepwondering #artemis #nasa

[steveaustin]

A couple of additions.

The 5m ICPS will only be used for the first 3 Artemis missions. From Artemis IV onward, the much larger 8.4m Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) is planned to be used and it will have 4 RL-10C engines. With the extra power, SLS is expected to launch the Orion/ESM and a Lunar Gateway module for construction in lunar orbit (NRHO).

The NASA rendering of the lander was an example used at the beginning of the HLS Option A competition to select a lunar lander for Artemis. The Blue Orion led National Team's Integrated Lander Vehicle (ILV) looks very similar to that, but taller. The ILV also came in second for the HLS Option A competition. The Dynetics Alpaca is a low-slung design that is a central cabin with horizontal trusses to hold the propellant tanks. NASA really liked this design, but it came in over its own design weight, so came in third. SpaceX's Lunar Starship is a stripped down version of Starship that can not return to Earth as it has no flaps and no thermal protection tiles. It is very tall, with the crew descending to the Moon on a ~30m (~98ft) 'elevator'. NASA loves the possibilities that Starship brings and it finished first in the HLS Option A competition. The $2.94B HLS Option A contract is for an unmanned test landing (around the time of Artemis II) and the manned Artemis III landing.

Congress only gave NASA 1/4 the HLS Option A funding that they asked for in 2020, so only SpaceX got a HLS contract. NASA is working on HLS Option B with SpaceX for one or more landings. There is also an Appendix P competition for selecting a second lander, with the ILV and Alpaca competing along with others.

(Spelling edit)