Important Foreign missions
Artemis II
- Four astronauts will venture around the Moon on Artemis II, the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration through Artemis.
- The 10-day flight will test NASA’s foundational human deep space exploration capabilities, the SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft, for the first time with astronauts.
- NASA’s Artemis missions aim to “land the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon”, explore the lunar surface, and lay the groundwork for sending astronauts to Mars.
- Artemis 2 will be a crewed flight beyond the Moon which will take humans the farthest they’ve ever been in space.
- Artemis 3 will be the first crewed Moon landing mission since Apollo 17 in 1972. NASA aims to land the first female astronaut and first astronaut of colour on the lunar surface. They will spend a week on the Moon performing scientific studies, before returning to Earth.
- Artemis 4 will deliver a core part of a new lunar space station (named ‘Gateway’) into orbit around the Moon, and land another two astronauts on the Moon’s surface.
- Artemis 5 will add another important module to Gateway and involve a third crewed lunar landing to undertake further surface science.
ASTHROS- NASA
- Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-wavelengths
- ASTHROS is a high-altitude balloon mission for studying astrophysical phenomena.
- ASTHROS observes far-infrared light, or light with wavelengths much longer than what is visible to the human eye.
- To do that, ASTHROS will need to reach an altitude of about 130,000 feet (24.6 miles, or 40 kilometers) – roughly four times higher than commercial airliners fly.
- Though still well below the boundary of space (about 62 miles, or 100 kilometers, above Earth’s surface), it will be high enough to observe light wavelengths blocked by Earth’s atmosphere.
- Dec 2023
