Why send so many missions to the moon in 2022?

Many other countries and private companies, including the United States, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates, are preparing to send their own missions to the moon, but why is there so much interest in the moon? Since there will not be a single landing on the moon in 2021, many missions will be sent to the moon this year. NASA will launch its Artemis program and is also sponsoring several programs to deliver equipment and supplies to the moon for future astronauts to use.

India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and a few other countries will launch their own missions to the moon this year. Many other companies will also try to reach the moon this year. All of these flights will have no crew members and will largely aim to create basic facilities for a sustainable human population on the moon in less than a decade.

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But that is not the end of the story. Instead, building a space station on the moon will be the first step in the future for spaceflight with crew on the red planet Mars. Dr. Zoe Lenhard, an astrophysicist at the University of Bristol, believes that a new space race with new countries will begin this year.

The purpose of many of these missions will be to study the moon analytically, but the purpose of some of them will be even higher. “Some missions are focused far and wide, and missions to the moon will be a test of new technology and collaboration, as well as a concept,” says Dr. Lenhard.

So which of these missions will do and what is going to happen on the moon this year? Let’s know

• NASA’s Artemis 1 mission and Cape Stone.
• NASA’s Artemis space program aims to return humans to the moon by 2025.
• This March, the Artemis 1 mission will begin basic work to achieve this goal.

The mission will not involve a crew, but a puppet in the commander’s chair. The slimmer is modeled after NASA’s electrical engineer Arturo Campos, who was instrumental in the successful return of the Apollo 13 space mission to Earth. The purpose of this slimming will be to test the space suit that Artemis will use in astronaut launches, ground space and other important mission locations when spacecraft may experience pressure, heat and friction.

NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS) will launch the world’s most powerful rocket mission, orbiting an Orion spacecraft around the moon to analyze the spacecraft’s safety. NASA will test the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield when it enters space from Earth, as the spacecraft’s temperature can reach 2760 degrees Celsius during this time. This year, another important part of the Artemis program will enter the next phase.

The Orion spacecraft will be the first phase of NASA’s Artemis program. The Capstone or Cellular Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment is actually being launched to pave the way for the Artemis program. NASA will launch this microwave oven-like satellite in March 2022 to test an orbit around the moon. The satellite will remain in the orbit of the moon and rotate on its axis at the same time. Its purpose is to ensure the safety of astronauts in future missions.

The real goal is Mars

The information gained from this test will help in testing the operational models for The Gateway, another important part of the Artemis program. NASA has described it as “a multi-purpose post in lunar orbit that will provide much-needed support for the long-term return of humans to the lunar surface.” If all goes well, Artemis 3 will become the first mission to land on the moon in 2025, after the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

In this mission, for the first time, a woman and a black astronaut will be landed on the moon. Dr. Hina Sgt., A planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida, says the focus on the moon is, in fact, for a larger purpose. The gateway mission will also serve as a post for studying the depths of space. “Robotic missions to the moon are the first step in a roadmap that will help establish a space station on the moon and eventually land humans on Mars,” she said.

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Missions to India, Japan and UAE.

Other nations and companies have also set their sights on the moon this year. Some of these missions will conduct research and other missions will deliver supplies and equipment here. After a failed landing on the moon two years ago, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is now trying to land another Chandrayaan 3 mission on the moon.

The spacecraft will have a lunar vehicle and a lander and will be launched in the third quarter of 2022. Japan also has two lunar projects planned for the moon this year. The Japanese space agency Jaxa has landed a lander on the moon in April 2022.

Called the Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon or Slim, the mission will demonstrate the most accurate technique for landing on the moon and identify pits on the moon with the help of face recognition technology. It will be accompanied by a space telescope called X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM).

One of them is a small two-wheeled robot made by Jaxa, while another robot named Rashid from the Japanese space agency will also land on the moon, which was made by the United Arab Emirates. The robot will have four wheels and will analyze the moon’s dust.

Missions of Russia and South Korea.

Russia’s Luna 25 mission will land at the moon’s south pole. Russia will launch a mission called Luna 25 to the moon in 2022. This will be Russia’s first mission to the moon in 45 years and the first to land on the moon’s South Pole. This is the area where NASA is planning to launch a mission with staff later.

The Russian space agency Roscosmos is to launch the mission in July 2022. One month later, the South Korean space agency Korea Aerospace Research Institute will launch the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) in August 2022. KPLO will analyze the moon’s surface and plan future missions to the moon’s poles.

NASA’s Commercial Robot.

Private companies are also involved in the race to land on the moon. Under NASA’s program Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CPLS), private companies will compete to provide lunar transport services. Houston-based company Intuitive Machines plans that a six-legged robot called Nova C will deliver equipment to the surface of the moon in early 2022.

A Pennsylvania company will then launch a mission of aerobatic technology in mid-2022. This mission, called Peregrine Mission 1, will land other scientific instruments, including a box-shaped four-legged robot lander.

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What will be the purpose of these missions?

Dr. Hina Sergeant says many of these missions will be aimed at analyzing the lunar environment while looking for ways to protect crew and equipment that have been damaged by dust and strong magnetic waves from the sun on the moon. These missions will give scientists the opportunity to test and experiment with prototype devices that will allow them to access resources such as water on the moon.

“We want these machines to be working before humans are sent to the moon, because the crew there will have to rely on the resources they get from those machines,” said Dr. Sgt. Ultimately, these supplies will be able to provide the fuel needed for future missions to Mars. “The moon will also be a testing ground for the technologies we will one day use on the Red Planet,” she said. It is very close to Earth, it only takes three days to reach here and it takes at least six months to reach Mars.