[imagesource: Flickr / NASA Johnson]

If everything goes as planned, humans will once again walk on the Moon in 2025.

NASA has announced its plan for the Artemis III mission, which will allow a lucky bunch of astronauts to walk on the lunar surface for the first time in over 50 years.

An exciting part of the mission is that the astronauts will go where no other human has been before: the lunar South Pole.

Four astronauts will launch on top of the massive Space Launch System (SLS) in the Orion capsule, where they will be taken to a lunar orbit called the Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO), per IFLScience:

This special celestial path around the Moon allows it to be constantly in contact with Earth and will one day soon be the location of the Lunar Gateway, a new space station that will provide a base for Moon (and possibly Mars) trips.

Oh yes, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is also a part of this mission, if you recall:

NASA awarded the contract for a lunar lander to Elon Musk’s company a few years ago, which led to a legal battle between SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. SpaceX will have to meet the high standard required by NASA and it is expected to conduct an uncrewed test on the surface of the Moon before it can be used for Artemis III.

SpaceX’s Starship will thus be a crucial component of the success of the mission, and so too will that deep space ground tracking station being built at Matjiesfontein in the Central Karoo District of the Western Cape.

Here’s the full Artemis III mission plan if you’re feeling nerdy:

Image: NASA

One of the biggest differences between the initial Apollo lunar exploration and Artemis’s is that the future mission will spend multiple days on the surface of the Moon in order to collect samples, survey geology, and more.

However, before Artemis III launches, Artemis II needs to go to space – expected to launch in May 2024 – which will be the first crewed mission of the Artemis programme.

Moon, here we come.

[source:iflscience]