Artemis: Mission to the Moon and beyond The Artemis programme will see NASA join forces with commercial spaceflight companies and international partners to try to land the first woman and next man on the lunar surface by 2024 – tentative steps in a long-term goal of sending astronauts to Mars GATEWAY SPACEPORT – Lunar orbital platform Power and propulsion: Attitude and orbit control, and communications First stage to launch: 2022 Completion of station: 2028 Logistics and utilisation: Cargo deliveries of food and equipment. Can double as additional habitation Robotic arm: Can berth and inspect vehicles or install payloads Number of launches of NASA and private rockets to complete Gateway: 37 Airlock: Enables spacewalks and offers potential to accommodate additional dockings Orion: Crew and service module – can transport four humans further into deep space than ever before First manned flight: 2022 Astronaut to scale Habitation modules: Pressurised volumes featuring life support, fire detection and suppression, water storage and distribution Sample return vehicle: Robotic lander capable of delivering payloads from Moon to Gateway Utilisation: Pressurised volume with additional habitation capability Esprit: Airlock with additional fuel storage and advanced lunar telecommunications July 20, 1969: Apollo 11 lands man on Moon 110.6m SLS launcher: Configured for Orion capsule 98.2m In Greek mythology, Artemis was daughter of Zeus, goddess of Moon and, aptly, twin sister of Apollo POSITION OF PLATFORM Moon orbits Earth every 27 days and is on average 384,400km away EARTH MOON 1,500km Distance from Moon 70,000km Near-rectilinear halo orbit: Gateway takes six days to orbit Moon – staying out of its shadow and keeping crew in constant communication with Earth. Ideal staging point for lunar surface and deep space locations EXPLORATION HUB From Gateway, vehicles can embark to multiple destinations, such as Moon, Mars and beyond Lander crew: 2 Manned Moon landing: 2024 Note: For illustrative purposes, Earth-Moon sizes and distances are not to scale Sources: NASA, Space.com, Ars Technica, Phys.org © GRAPHIC NEWS