The US space agency (NASA) has formally outlined its bn 28bn (bn 22bn) plan to return to the moon by 2024.
As part of a program called Artemis, NASA will send a man and a woman to the first landing with humans on the lunar surface since 1972.
But the agency’s timeline is contingent on releasing કોંગ્રેસ 3.2bn to Congress to build a landing system.
The astronauts will travel in an Apollo-like capsule called Orion that will land on a powerful rocket called SLS.
Speaking on Monday afternoon (US time), NASA Administrator Jim Brydenstein said: “The bn 28bn represents the costs involved in the Artemis program for the next four years to land on the moon. Includes items that are part of the Artemis program. “
But he explained: “The budget request we have before the House and the Senate now includes 3. 3.2bn for the human landing system for 2021. It is important that we get that 2 3.2bn.”
Artemis: Moon and beyond
The U.S. House of Representatives has already passed a bill allocating m 600m to landers. But NASA will need more funding for the full development of the vehicle.
Mr Bridensta added: “I want to make it clear, we are grateful to the House of Representatives, with the exception that, bilaterally, they have decided that it is important to fund the human landing system – the one that represents the 600m. That’s all we need for 3.2bn. “
In July 2019, Mr. Bridenstein told CNN that the first female astronaut to walk on the moon in 2024 will be someone who has been “proven, someone has flown, someone who has already landed on the International Space Station.” He also said he would be someone already in the astronaut corps.
At the time of this interview, there were 12 active female astronauts. He has since been joined by five other female NASA astronauts who received training earlier this year. But it is unclear whether they will be able to meet the criteria in time to fly on the first landing mission in 2024.
Asked about the timeline for selecting crew members for the Artemis mission, the NASA chief said he expects to select a team at least two years before the first mission.
Still, he said: “I think we made Artemis important to the team even before we started identifying them … mainly because I think it will serve as a source of inspiration.”
The new document outlines Phase 1 of the plan, which includes a test flight around the moon – called Artemis-1 – in the fall of 2021.
Kathy Luders, head of NASA’s Human Spaceflight, said Artemis-1 would take a month to test almost all complex systems.
He said the demonstration would reduce the risk for flight Artemis-2, which would repeat the journey around the moon with astronauts.
A new test has been added to this mission – a demonstration of proximity operations. Shortly after the Ion Ryan separates from the upper stage of the SLS rocket – known as the intermediate cryogenic propulsion stage – the astronauts will manually pilot the spacecraft when they return from the stage.
This will assess Orion’s handling capabilities along with the spacecraft’s hardware and software performance.
Artemis-3 will be the first mission to send astronauts to the lunar surface since Apollo 17 about 48 years ago.
NASA has provided 67 967m (m 763m) to several companies to work on the design of the landing vehicle that will take them there.
Decades later, the plan called for NASA to establish a base for humans, called the Artemis Base Camp, which would include the infrastructure needed for long-term lunar exploration.
Scientists will want to remove water-ice from the Moon’s South Pole, as it could be used to make rocket fuel on the Moon at a lower cost than taking it from Earth.
Compared to Artemis, the Apollo program in the 1960s and ’70s cost upwards of bn 250bn in inflation-adjusted US dollars.
However, the 28 28 billion for the new project does not include the money already spent on developing the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
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