With Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years coming up, many people across the world are traveling internationally. Over 50 million people are flying across the world to see their families. But they are not the only ones.
Let’s fly out of Earth and travel into deep space, on November 16, 2022 NASA launched the SLS rocket with the Orion spacecraft.
The mission is called Artemis 1 and is an uncrewed test of the Orion spacecraft that should be able to take humans back to the moon by 2024. But NASA also had stored small microwave sized spacerafts, nested in the top of the second stage of the rocket. These are what we call Cubesats and here's what they are and were there going:
ArgoMoon: Developed by Italian company Argotec and sponsored by ASI Italy’s national space agency, performs autonomous visual-based proximity operations on the in-space stage of SLS. It was successfully turned on shortly after launch.
Biosentinel: Space is full of harmful radiation that can destroy your DNA, to help protect spacecraft from dangerous radiation NASA is using Biosentinel. The spacecraft will fly out into deep space and study what happens to DNA when in space and what can be done to prevent damage.
EQUULEUS: (EQUilibriUm Lunar-Earth point 6U Spacecraft) will measure the amount of plasma that surrounds the Earth to help scientists understand the radiation environment in that region.
LunarH-map: Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper, or LunaH-Map, will help investigate the possible presence of water-ice on the Moon.
However there have been some failures.
Japan’s Omotenashi spacecraft was supposed to land on the moon, it would have been the first time Japan had landed on the moon, the spacecraft should have inflated like a balloon, the spacecraft called back to Earth shortly after launch. But the spacecraft just stopped communication, JAXA (Japan's space agency) spent three days trying to contract the probe but then gave up hope.
The other five Cubesats, NASA has not released an update on. However they did say that some of them were having trouble with their solar panels charging but other than that they were working fine.
These Cubesats should help the understanding of deep space and help prepare humans as they go to Mars and beyond.
To get live updates click here!
https://www.space.com/artemis-1-cubesats-deep-space-updates
To learn more about the Artemis 1 mission go here