NASA has plans to land astronauts on the moon again by 2024, and construction of the spacecraft is already underway.
In 2019, former vice president Mike Pence announced that plans for NASA to place astronauts on the moon for the first time since 1972 had been pushed forward from 2028 to 2024.
There have been rumours that this goal would be relaxed, but the team who are constructing the spacecraft are already putting it together.
NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans has seen the first parts of the spacecraft – called Artemis III – be put together. Technicians from Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin have begun welding three cone-shaped panels to create a crew module.
In a press statement, NASA explained the function of the crew module:
The crew module’s primary structure, the pressure vessel, is comprised of seven machined aluminum alloy pieces that are welded together through a weld process that produces a strong, air-tight habitable space for astronauts during the mission.
The pressure vessel is designed to withstand the harsh and demanding environment of deep space, and is the core structure upon which all the other elements of Orion’s crew module are integrated.
Once this essential part of the spacecraft is constructed, the team will move on to ‘ joining the forward bulkhead to the tunnel to create the top of the spacecraft’. After the primary structure of the Artemis III crew module is finished, it will be sent to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for further assembly.
