Artemis II Crew Simulates Moon Environment In Iceland

JAKARTA Artemis II will be the opening for the Artemis III mission to land astronauts on the Moon. Although this second flight did not reach the moon, the four crew still had to train in a moon-like area.

Iceland was chosen to be the area because it has rocks similar to the surface of the moon, namely basal and brasek. Basal is a dark rock formed from a volcano, while breksi is a piece of edged rock that can create new rocks.

Since the Apollo mission, Iceland has been selected as one of the places to train astronauts who will fly. This Nordic island was re-elected as a training ground for the Artemis astronaut. The entire crew selected, both native and reserve crew, has arrived in Iceland.

Cindy Evans, head of the Artemis Geological Training at NASA's Johnson Space Center, said that the Icelandic election was based on the testimonials of the Apollo crew that had reached the moon. They say Iceland is the location of the most similar training to the Moon.

Island has a planetary process similar to the moon, in this case, volcanicism. Iceland has a landscape that looks like the Moon. And Iceland has a feature scale that astronauts will observe and explore on the Moon," said Cindy.

While in Iceland, the Artemis II crew not only explored the island's geology, but also trained navigational and expeditionary skills on the Moon. They tested various equipment and studied using hammers, shovels, and thighs to collect rock samples.

Exploration Geologist and Artemis Science Team Chief Hardware Trevoruff said that the equipment used to train has not changed much since the Apollo mission. Most of the tools are still the same because astronauts only need to learn to take samples.

Traditionally, a geologist only carries a set of standard tools such as stone hammers and shovels to take samples from the world around them, both on the surface and below the surface, said Raff.