With Orion still flying, NASA is nearing key decisions about Artemis III
NASA's Artemis II mission has yet to return to Earth—it will do so on Friday evening, splashing down into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego—but the agency is already nearing some key decisions on the next Artemis mission. The US space agency announced six weeks ago that it was modifying its Artemis timeline to insert a mission before beginning planned lunar landings. This new mission, designated Artemis III and intended to fly in Earth orbit rather than to the Moon, would attempt to "buy down" risk to give the lunar landing mission (now Artemis IV) a higher chance of success. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Tuesday afternoon that the space agency is debating about which orbit to fly Artemis III in before locking in a blueprint, noting that the first "senior level" Artemis III mission design discussion had taken place earlier in the day. Read full article Comments
NASA's Artemis II mission has yet to return to Earth—it will do so on Friday evening, splashing down into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego—but the agency is already nearing some key decisions on the next Artemis mission.
The US space agency announced six weeks ago that it was modifying its Artemis timeline to insert a mission before beginning planned lunar landings. This new mission, designated Artemis III and intended to fly in Earth orbit rather than to the Moon, would attempt to "buy down" risk to give the lunar landing mission (now Artemis IV) a higher chance of success.
“One of the questions is what the initial orbit will be for Artemis III.”
Low-Earth orbit, or LEO, is designated as a distance of about 160 km to 2,000 km above the Earth’s surface. High-Earth orbit is considered to be greater than 36,000 km from the Earth’s surface, above geosynchronous orbit.
