The principal purpose of the Artemis program is to discover the surface of our natural satellite. While seeking resourceful samples of the Moon, the astronauts might need to use the already existing resources on the surface of the Moon to satisfy their primary needs. The Artemis program aims to bring astronauts on the Moon by the end of 2021. The primary objective is to establish sustainable missions on the Moon by the end of this expedition in 2024.
For example, water is a massive and expensive resource to transport from the Erath to the Moon. Therefore, our next lunar explorers might need to search for ice that they can mine. After excavating it, the ice can be melted and purified to transform it into drinkable water.
NASA and The Moon – The Lunar Flashlight Project
What is still not clear is where astronauts can find the resources since the lunar surface is very bix to explore. This is why NASA has developed the Lunar Flashlight project. The small satellite is named CubeSat and is focusing on detecting natural sources of ice, which is thought to exist at the bottom of the craters on the Moon since the sunlight cannot reach that depth.
The principal investigator of this mission, Barbara Cohen, has declared that even though the researchers’ assumptions are stating that there is real ice in that particular area, recent measurements have failed to provide a detailed analysis. Therefore, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is trying to determine the ice resources for the upcoming astronauts to exploit.
The Lunar Flashlight project is developed by NASA and is the first spacecraft to explore the water resources in the outer space. In addition to this, the rover is powered by a specially designed fuel using propellant hydrazine that makes its transportation more eco-friendly than before. The costs of this mission are much lower than expected due to the brand-new fuel introduction, as stated by John Baker.
