From NASA mission to private trips, humankind gets closer to Moon

New Delhi: From a crewed NASA mission to private spacecraft roaring to explore the Moon, the year 2023 promises to be the final lap towards sending humans, including a woman and a person of colour, to the lunar surface in 2024.
On November 28, Orion spacecraft reached its maximum distance from Earth during the Artemis I mission when it was 268,563 miles away from our home planet.
Among the accomplishments for NASA’s human spaceflight programmes, the agency successfully launched, for the first time, its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which put NASA’s Orion spacecraft on a path that travelled farther than any spacecraft built for astronauts has been before.
The US space agency has completed manufacturing the booster segments and delivered the engine section to Kennedy for the Artemis III mission, which will be humanity’s first return to the lunar surface in more than 50 years and land the first woman on the Moon.
The agency has also completed numerous key Artemis milestones that will ensure not only a human return to the lunar surface, but long-term exploration on and around the Moon in preparation for sending the first astronauts to Mars.
Also Read NASA finally bids goodbye to InSight Mars lander To date, the agency has identified 13 candidate landing regions near the lunar South Pole where the next American astronauts on the Moon could land during Artemis III, selected Axiom Space to provide the moonwalking system, including spacesuits, that astronauts will use during Artemis III, as well as awarded a task order to Collins Aerospace to develop new spacesuits for the International Space Station.