NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) recently announced that the Canadian astronaut would fly as part of the crew. Artemis II. The mission, scheduled for 2023, will see the Orion Space Capsule operate a rotation flight where it flies around the moon without landing. This will be the crew’s first of two offerings to provide Canadian astronauts on a NASA Artemis mission (under contract).
This rotation will pave the way for the flight Artemis III The mission in 2024, which will see astronauts return to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years. The announcement was made last week (Wednesday, December 16) by Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and CSA (respectively) Presidents Navdeep Ben and Lisa Campbell.
The mission will be a historic event as only American astronauts have ever traveled beyond Earth orbit, something that has not happened since the last days of the Apollo era in 1972. This mission will also send Canada to another country in the world. Astronaut around the moon.
Selected astronauts will also be proud to be part of the mission that set this record The human journey from the far side of the moon. While Artemis II will be the first of two Artemis missions to include a Canadian astronaut, the second flight will meet the lunar gateway once (by 2030).
The agreement is based on a long-standing tradition of cooperation between Canada and the United States, dating back to the early days of the space age. In the case of the Human Spaceflight, Canada created CanadaDarm for the space shuttle program. This was followed by the establishment of CanadaDerm 2 on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2001, which played a key role in the construction of the station.
Which Canadian astronauts have TBD, but will be one of four active CSA astronauts – who were present for the announcement. These include:
- Col. Jeremy Hanson: Hansen was born in 1974 in London, Ontario. He was selected by the CSA in May 2009 by the Third Canadian Astronaut Recruitment Campaign. NASA is one of 14 members of the 20-member astronaut class.
- Jennifer Side-Gibbons: Born in Calgary, Alberta in 1988, Sydney-Gibbons is a former mechanical engineer and assistant professor of internal combustion engine at Cambridge University’s Department of Engineering. July 1Std, 2017 (Canada 150M Anniversary) She was recruited by CSA as one of two new astronauts.
- Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Kutrik: Born in 1982 in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Kutrik is a mechanical engineer and a pre-test / fighter pilot with RCAF. He was also selected by the CSA for the 4th Canadian Astronaut Recruitment Campaign in 2017.
- David Saint-Jacques: Born in 1970 in St. Lambert, Quebec, St. Jack is an engineer and astrophysicist. He is also an adjunct professor of family medicine at McGill University and a former medical doctor and co-chief of medicine at the Innovative Health Center in Puvarnitik, Nunavic, where he oversaw the training of physicians. He joined CSA in 2009 as part of NASA’s 20thM Morning 204 day astronaut class on ISS as part of Expedition 58/59 (December 2018 – June 2019) and.
Canada will also be responsible for providing the Lunar Gateway to provide its external robotics system, which will include CanadaDerm (a robotic system designed to operate autonomously). The agreement on cooperation on the gateway was finalized as part of the astronaut agreement and also called on Canada to provide gateway modules with robotic interfaces.
CanadaDerm 3 will also install the first two scientific devices at the gateway. These will be NASA’s Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite (HERMES) and ESA’s European Radiation Sensor Array (ERSA) experiments – which will improve weather forecasts for astronauts. As Dan Hartman, Gateway Program Manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, expressed:
“CSA’s state-of-the-art robotics contribution with CanadaDarm brings together our long astronaut history, which can serve us with long-term stability and maintenance decisions, overall inspections of external gateways and associated vehicles, and our worldwide research supporting external payloads. Initiative.
“Our efforts at the gateway are well underway to incorporate CSA’s robotics system into individual gateway modules, including PPE (power and propulsion element) connected to arm attachment points and small dexterus adapters, hello (housing and logistics outpost), gateway logistics. And international living element design. “
The gateway is central to NASA’s long-term goal of establishing a “Sustainable Moon Research Program.” By 2030, it will include a surface element (Artemis base camp) located in the Cretaceous and permanently shaded South Pole Itken Basin. NASA plans to launch the first two segments of the gateway in 2023 – a power and propulsion element (PPE) and a housing and logistics outpost (HALO).
However, the station will not be used as a temporary residence for astronauts to visit until other segments are delivered by the end of the decade. This will be provided by CSA, European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JXA). Once operational, the gateway will be connected to a reusable human landing system (HLS), which will allow astronauts to get to and from the lunar surface.
With Artemis base camp, NASA and other agencies will be able to send missions to the moon for extended periods of time. In the long run the gateway will be connected to Deep Space Transport (DST) which will enable crew missions to Mars and beyond. Before any of that happens, however, NASA must approve it Orion, Space Launch System (SLS), and other components of Project Artemis for crew missions.
This Artemis II The mission will be the first time to go into space using astronauts Orion Space capsule, which was also test-launched without a crew. As Bain said, the mission “will allow us to continue our tradition of being world leaders in space exploration. It’s exciting. That’s a start. And it gives us hope for the future in these challenging times. ”
In a statement, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstein praised the spirit of cooperation between the two space agencies. This includes Canada being the first international partner to commit to the Gateway program last year and the first group of countries to sign the Artemis Accord last October. As he said:
“Canada was the first international partner to commit to Gateway in early 2019, they signed the Artemis Accords in October, and we are now excited to formalize this partnership for lunar research. This agreement represents the evolution of our cooperation with CSA, providing the next pay generation of robotics that has supported the space decade mission to the space shuttle and the International Space Station, and now to Artemis. “
SLS and Orion’s first test flight (Artemis I) S.L.S. / Orion’s sapphire flight is scheduled for November 2021. Artemis IIIThe “first lady and the next man” to land on the moon for the first time in years, is currently scheduled for October 24, 207. There are doubts that NASA will be able to meet this deadline, which was announced by VP. Pence did. On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing in 2019.
Part of the problem is the budget. Currently, the U.S. Congress has not approved the funding needed for fiscal year 2021 (3.4 billion) alone to move this project forward. HLS has become indispensable since the non-prioritization of the Moon Gateway last March, it is still in the design phase. NASA announced in late April three companies competing to develop HLS (SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Dynamics).
There is also SLS, which has experienced multiple delays that have forced a date Artemis i Push back several times at this point. And with admission to a new administration office on 20 JanuaryM, 2021, NASA may find itself free from its tough 2024 deadline, which could mean that its priorities will change a bit in the coming year.
But one thing that will not change is the commitment of NASA and its international partners (CSA, ESA, JXA, and perhaps Russia and China) to return to the moon this decade (and form the basis for a permanent human presence)). NASA is also deep in the process of deciding who is going on the first crew Artemis Missions and subsequent ones.
During the same meeting, NASA introduced astronauts who will be part of the 18-member Artemis team. And as Hansen said, whatever lucky CSA astronaut goes ahead Artemis II On behalf of the entire Canada and Astronaut team will do the following:
“We will continue to work towards this goal on behalf of all of Canada. The really important thing for us as astronaut corps is that we are a team and we will take these big challenges together. We explore each other, and it doesn’t turn into a competitive process, but all of our ways turn into a process of picking up each other. “
Further reading: CSA, NASA, Space Policy .Online, SpaceFlightNow
