JAKARTA - President Joe Biden expressed his support for the United States (US) plan to return to the Moon. Previously, this discourse had been conveyed by his predecessor, Donald Trump.
There has been speculation about the direction the new administration might take in Artemis's program. According to the plan, the next man, as well as the first woman, will land on the lunar surface in the next few years.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the news at a media briefing Thursday, February 4.
"I am very happy now to tell my daughter all about it," said Psaki, quoted by the BBC, Sunday, February 7. He added: Through the Artemis program, the United States government will work with industry and international partners to send astronauts to the lunar surface. Other men and women to the Moon.
Psaki said the mission would bring "new knowledge and other interesting things, especially in terms of preparing for future missions to Mars and demonstrating American values." Even so, Psaki did not mention when the departure target would be made.
Previously, former Vice President Mike Pence had mentioned 2024. However, information growing inside the White House stated that even Trump and Pence were actually not "tied" in the year mentioned.
About the mission
After Mike Pence's return to the Moon mission announced in 2017, NASA announced they were targeting a landing in 2028. When Pence reset the timeline in 2019, it had been seen as a way to "light a fire" under NASA, accelerating the effort it assessed slow by the Trump administration.
The date of 2024 is in doubt due to a lack of funding for the landing element, which will carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface. NASA has requested $ 3.3 billion to fund the Human Landing System (HLS) by 2021, but has only received $ 850 million. That will likely affect the schedule.
Other elements of the Artemis Moon architecture are the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The Orion capsule and service module to be used on the first Artemis mission - an unmanned loop around the Moon - at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida are being prepared for a launch scheduled for late 2021.
The bulk of the SLS rocket that will hover over Orion on this flight is currently at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where it will experience another "hotfire," where all four engines fire for eight minutes during the week of February 21.
The previous hotfire attempt was shut down after more than a minute due to a hydraulic problem. The Orion and SLS hardware that will be used on the second and third Artemis missions is currently being assembled. This is the third flight that will see humans land on the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Psaki said: To date only 12 humans have walked on the Moon. That was half a century ago. The Artemis program, a waypoint to Mars, provides an opportunity to add numbers to it.
"Lunar exploration has broad and bicameral support in Congress."
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