NASA’s Chief Exploration Scientist has revealed his hopes for the upcoming Artemis I rocket launch and what he’d like to find on the Moon.
Jacob Bleacher spoke to The Sun about the Moon mission, currently scheduled to launch on Monday 29 at 8:33am ET (1:33pm BST).
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Bleacher spoke to The Sun about Nasa’s Orion capsule which will shoot around the Moon with experiments onboard.
The experiments include several ‘CubeSats’, some of which will be investigating Moon ice.
The Nasa expert explained: “For me, it’s kind of a package deal. I’m a scientist but I work in exploration.
“I want to see the Orion perform well come home and show us we’re in a good position to go for Artemis II and II because I want to go and do the science.
“That’s what I’m interested in. So, I think the measurements these CubeSats are going to make are tremendous and I think also what I think is going to be important is some of the measurements that are going to be made about that radiation environment.
“We want to spend more time on the Moon developing an environment for going into the solar system and you have to understand the environment you’re operating in and how it impacts you and life in general as a human so to me Artemis was just this awesome package deal.”
Bleacher told journalists at a press briefing that he’s particularly interested in Moon ice measurements and what it could mean for future space travel as well as a human habitat on the Moon.
If a lot of Moon ice is found, the manned missions of Artemis II and III may focus on these areas.
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Ten small devices called CubeSats will be on Nasa’s Space Launch System.
CubeSats are each their own little spacecraft and Nasa scientists are taking advantage of Artemis I to get them up to space.
One CubeSat will be going to investigate an asteroid and some are mapping water deposits for future missions to valuable resources
One CubeSat will land on the Moon and study radiation there.
Moon radiation is also something Bleacher is hoping to learn more about from Artemis I.
He told journalists: “It’s critical for us to learn about this environment moving forward.”
