MOON MISSION

The Artemis mission, American space agency NASA is planning to send humans to the moon once again. Recently, on occasion of the 53rd anniversary of the Apollo-11 moon landing, Jim Frey, Co-administrator NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said that Artemis-1 mega-moon rocket could be launched after August 29. It will be an unmanned mission. This mission will go to the Moon and then come back to Earth as an initial test of Artemis program. Through this mission, NASA wants to achieve its goal of landing humans on moon once again by 2025. Under this mission, a woman will also go to the moon, who will become the first woman in the world to go to the moon. The Artemis mission is going to be the most special and important mission of this decade that will usher in a new era in the field of space exploration. NASA says that though this mission will start from the moon, but in the near future it will prove to be a boon for Mars Mission as well because going to the moon is an important step before reaching Mars. In fact, NASA wants to use the moon as a launch pad to go to Mars. The race to go to the moon has started anew. Whichever country will occupy the moon first, its dominance in the field of space science will increase. Moon’s rare mineral wealth, especially helium-3, also made it a favorite. Apart from US, Russia, Japan and South Korea, India is also going to send their lunar probes to moon in 2022-23. Many private companies and Governments are lining up to win contracts from space agencies to deliver supplies and equipment to moon and accelerate experiments. After the crash of the lander-rover of India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2019, India is planning to send a lander and rover to the moon again in the first quarter of 2023 under the Chandrayaan-3 mission. Based on the lessons learned during the Chandrayaan-2 mission, preparations have been made for the Chandrayaan-3 mission. It has a special focus on design, capacity building and other technical things has not been kept South Korea will also send its first ‘Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter Mission’ to the Moon next month. The orbiter will study the geological and chemical composition of the Moon. Russia is also preparing to land its indigenous lander Luna-25 on the surface of the moon. It is clear from this trend that the government and private space agencies of different countries are busy preparing to go to the moon.

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