As NASA plans to land the first and next female on the Moon by 2024 with the Artemis program, scientists and engineers are helping NASA determine the location of the Artemis concept Base Camp as a number of factors are needed to consider choosing the right site.
Among many things, NASA needs to take into account when choosing a particular location there are two main features – the site needs to bask in near-continuous sunlight to power the base and moderate to high temperature movements, and must offer easy access to complete areas of darkness that hold water ice, NASA said Wednesday.
American astronauts in 2024 will take the first steps near the south pole of the moon: the land of true light, extreme darkness, and frozen water that could fuel NASA’s Artemis lunar base and the leap of the group into the deep place.
While there are many bright areas in the South Pole area, some parts see more or less light than others.
Scientists have found that at some higher altitudes, such as crater rims, astronauts would see longer periods of light.
But the bottoms of some deep shafts are ignited in a relatively stable darkness since the sunlight at the South Pole beats at such a low angle that it only brushes the ridges.
These unique lighting conditions are related to the lunar tilt and the topography of the South Pole region.
Unlike Earth’s 23.5-degree tilt, the Moon is only 1.5 degrees on its axis.
As a result, none of the lunar hemisphere’s orbits appear prominently toward or away from the Sun all year round as it does on Earth – resulting in darker and darker seasons. us here.
This also means that the height of the sun in the skies at the moon poles does not change much during the day.
If anyone was standing on top of a mountain near the South Pole at daylight, at any time of the year, they could see the sun moving over the horizon, spraying the surface like a flashlight not lying on board.
“The ground is so amazing down there,” W. Brent Garry, a geologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement.
Garry works with engineers on a virtual mission around the South Pole of the Moon to help immerse astronauts, scientists, and mission planners in the exotic environment of that region as they prepare for human return to Moon.
While a basic camp site needs a lot of light, it is also important that astronauts be able to take short trips into permanent dark pits.
Scientists believe these shady pits are home to frozen water sources that researchers could use for life support.
“One idea is to set up a camp in an illuminated zone and enter those craters, which are extremely cold,” said NASA Goddard planetary scientist Daniel P. Moriarty, who is involved in NASA’s South Pole site exploration and design team.
Temperatures in some of the coldest pits can drop to around 235 degrees Celsius.
The original plans involved landing a spaceship on a fairly flat part of a well-lit crater’s edge or ridge.
“You want to land in the flattest area possible, because you don’t want the vehicle to come ashore,” Moriarty said.
The landing area should, in effect, be separated from other basic camp features – such as the campus or solar panels – by at least half a mile, or one kilometer.
It should also be positioned at different heights to prevent a descending spacecraft from spraying high-speed debris at equipment or areas of scientific interest.