It finally worked: The NASA moon mission is at 7.48 a.m. Central European Time Artemis 1 launched from the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome in the US state of Florida. The unmanned capsule is to last around three weeks Orion now be in orbit around the moon to prepare for a lunar mission. Previously, the mission had to use the new rocket Space launch system postponed several times due to technical problems, such as a broken engine and a hydrogen leak. Two consecutive storms also prevented an earlier start.
With the program artemis US astronauts are supposed to land on the moon again in the coming years – after a 50-year absence. And it should be more diverse: for the first time, a woman and a non-white person should also have the opportunity to walk there. In a way, the moon is the stepping stone to Mars. During the next flights into space, outposts are to be built on it and its orbit as starting points for a later Mars mission. This is planned for 2025 at the earliest.
At the current Artemis 1-test mission, there are no people on board yet, but two dolls from the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Zohar and Helga are “astronaut phantoms” and are supposed to test, among other things, whether a protective vest developed in Israel can effectively protect a female body in particular from dangerous space radiation. The exposure to radiation for the body is very high outside the earth’s magnetic field and is therefore one of the greatest burdens during a longer stay in space. The female body is more sensitive to this than the male.