April12 Artemis.

NASA's Artemis Program is the agency's plan to explore the moon and build a lunar station. Program got its name in honor of the goddess of hunting from Greek mythology, the sister of Apollo.

The Artemis space program was launched by NASA in 2019 with the goal of returning humans to the moon by 2024 and creating a permanent base on its surface.

As part of the Artemis program, NASA plans with a Space Launch System (SLS) launch the Orion spacecraft, which will deliver the crew to the moon. For land on the moon will be used Human Landing System (HLS) module.

The main goal of the Artemis program is to explore the Moon in preparation for sending a mission to Mars. Also, within the framework of the Artemis program, experiments are planned on the lunar surface, the construction of new space stations and testing new space flight technologies. The Artemis program is part of a wider NASA's Artemis Accords initiative, which calls on the international community to collaborate on research space and in the implementation of missions to the surface of the Moon and Mars. The goal of the Artemis program is to establish sustainable landing research base on the moon. NASA also plans to repeat the flight to the moon, landing at the south pole of the moon.

The lunar station will be used as a platform for further lunar exploration and as a transit point for missions to other planets and satellites of the solar system.

NASA's Artemis program is an example of the agency's broader space exploration and development strategy. more distant targets, such as missions to Mars and beyond our solar system.

Orion is a manned spacecraft project created by NASA for deep space exploration. The ship was first announced in 2011 and has been in development ever since.

The ship has four compartments, including a pressurized crew compartment, a life support system compartment, a cooling system and a compartment for the power supply system. Orion is also equipped with highly efficient solar panels, allowing long time to work in space. The Orion spacecraft provides manned flight to orbit the Moon, to Mars, to asteroids and even beyond solar system.

The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is NASA's initiative to create a heavy rocket and space complex for launching missions into deep space. The SLS is a replacement for decommissioned shuttles.

The system consists of several missile units:

Core Stage - the main block where the fuel tanks, engines and control equipment. This unit will be used on all missions and will be able to send to orbit 105 tons of cargo.
Booster - side rocket boosters that will be used only at launch. This unit is capable of sending up to 85 tons of cargo into orbit.
Upper Stage - used to bring cargo to the flight path further from the Earth towards the Moon or Mars.

The first test flight without a crew under the Artemis I program took place on November 16 through December 11, 2022. Flight duration: 25 days 10 hours 53 minutes. The flight was declared as successful. Artemis-1 was the first integrated flight test of NASA's deep space exploration system: Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rockets, and ground systems at Cape Kennedy Space Center Canaveral, Florida. The first in a series of increasingly difficult missions. During this flight, an unmanned Orion spacecraft was launched on the most powerful rocket in the world and flew thousands of miles beyond the moon, further, than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown during a roughly three-week mission.

This flight paved the way for the Artemis II manned flight planned for November 2024. During the Artemis II mission, four astronauts, among whom there will be one astronaut from Canada, will fly around the moon for the first time since 1972.

On January 9, NASA announced an update to the Artemis program. To safely execute missions, agency leaders adjusted the Artemis II and Artemis III flight schedules to allow teams to cope with challenges associated with new developments, operations and integration. The Artemis 2 mission, which was scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center in November 2024, has been rescheduled to no earlier than September 2025. The Artemis 3 mission, which will still include the first astronaut landing near the Moon's South Pole since 1972, has now been pushed back to September 2026.