Mankind’s race to Moon- again!
How humans have gravitated towards Moon again in the age of cosmic exploration!
The start of this decade with a lunar eclipse on January 10, 2020, evoked memories of bravery and courage in humankind’s race to land first on our closest astronomical neighbor. And rightly so, since we just celebrated the golden jubilee of Apollo 11’s success last year. But even though science and technology have developed in leaps and bounds empowering us with the knowledge of many other moons in the vast Universe, something seems to have brought us all back to our own Moon (more than gravity, of course, :p). This decade is all set, with the world’s eyes on the Moon, evident by numerous missions around the world to search for water, minerals or something more. Interested to know more about these exciting ventures? Then, fasten your seat belts and start this journey!
Chandrayaan — 3
India had launched Chandrayaan-2, last September in the high hopes of becoming the fourth country to perform soft-landing of a rover on the lunar surface. Although the orbiter is working correctly, the unfortunate crash landing of Vikram on the lunar surface did devastate many of the astronomy enthusiasts. But ISRO is back to prove its indigenous capability with Chandrayaan-3, which was officially announced on January 1 this year. The mission, slated to launch in 2021, will consist of a stationary lander and a rover as it will coordinate with the orbiter of Chandrayaan-2. While we keep our fingers crossed for this one, here’s a picture of the beautiful Moon craters captured by the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter!
Artemis
NASA has come up with a new space program called Artemis, in collaboration with commercial companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, etcetera, and many international partners like ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). The program is a crewed spaceflight program to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024.
Although this has just been viewed as a step towards achieving the long-term goal of sending humans to Mars, NASA seems to be ready to learn everything from scratch for this mission. From the Space Launch System as the biggest rocket of all time and a new spacecraft Orion to two novel spacesuits: the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU), and the Orion Crew Survival System (OCSS), and the Lunar Gateway to serve as a space station to be deployed in lunar orbit, this highly ambitious mission has been in development since 2011. The program has already started with the successful launch of Artemis 1 this week, and we hope this program turns out to be as historic as its twin brother, Apollo.
To read more about it, click here — NASA!
Luna-Glob
With NASA’s missions to the Moon, there is no way Roscosmos can be behind, mainly because it will be the first time that cosmonauts will land on the lunar surface. The Luna-Glob program is aimed at achieving precisely that, with its goal of creating a fully robotic lunar base so that it can start with crewed lunar missions in the orbiter spacecraft Orel. European technology, science, and infrastructure will also be part of this adventure as a result of the collaboration between Roscosmos and ESA for Luna missions. While the mission had been delayed several times due to the financial crisis, the mission is back on track again with Luna 25 scheduled to launch in 2021 to land on Moon’s South Pole, and Luna 29 having a rover with the capability of bringing back samples from the Moon to Earth. While the crewed lunar missions are only planned for the early 2030s after the robotic phase is completed, we cannot wait to see cosmonauts too getting down on the Moon!
Chang’e
Operational since 2007, China’s Lunar Exploration Project is divided into four main phases: Orbital Missions, Soft Landers, Sample Return and a Lunar Research Station. The first two phases have already been completed successfully. Chang’e 4 has enthralled us last year by its successful landing on the far side of the Moon and the first sprouting ever of cotton seeds in an experiment on its lander. But there’s a lot more to come! While Chang’e and Chang’4 are planned to bring back samples of Moon to Earth, Chang’e 7’s objective is to detect water ice in permanently shadowed regions and determine its origin while Chang’e 8 will be designed to test technologies necessary to the construction of a lunar science base. This mission has been very promising so far, and we hope it amazes us with even more surprises in this decade.
These are just some of the many missions planned for our bright and cold neighbor. A number of them are also coming up from nations such as South Korea and Germany as well as Indian aerospace company TeamIndus, with their targets to the Moon. The Moon has become a mini-laboratory for Earthlings to experiment with crewed missions. Still, the heightened scientific interest in this laboratory will also help us to unlock various mysteries associated with our neighbour. Who knows these discoveries might lead to the Moon becoming the first un-earthly object to be permanently colonised by humans!
As once remarked by Percy Bysshe Shelley in her poem ‘To the Moon’,
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever-changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
Fret not, Moon; for gone are your days of negligence by Earthlings! Humanity is now ready to return to the Moon to put an end to its loneliness!
Do follow Nakshatra to join us in our exploration of the cosmos. Looking Beyond The Stars!
