NASA astronauts will create a “summer plot” on the Moon: when they start digging and planting

In 2022, the unmanned Artemis 1 mission was successfully completed, next year the manned mission Artemis 2 will take place, in which NASA astronauts will fly around the Moon in a spacecraft, and in 2026, a manned mission involving astronauts landing on the Moon will take place. The surface of the Moon. The Artemis 3 mission will mark the return of humans to Earth’s moon for the first time in more than half a century. As part of this mission, astronauts will place three scientific instruments on the Moon. Space writes that one of the experiments was to create a mini-greenhouse filled with plants.

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NASA has selected 3 scientific devices that astronauts should place on the Moon in 2026. The LEAF instrument, for example, was designed to study the effects of lunar conditions on crop plants and how these plants grow and develop in extreme conditions.

Thus, an experiment will be conducted to study the process of photosynthesis, plant growth and reactions to lunar conditions in the presence of cosmic radiation and low gravity. The results of the experiment will help scientists understand how plants growing on the Moon behave and whether they could be used as food for astronauts on a future Moon base.

The other two devices that astronauts will carry to the Moon are the Lunar Environmental Monitoring Station (LEMS) and the Lunar Dielectric Analyzer (LDA).

• LEMS is an array of autonomous seismometers that will monitor moonquakes for 2 years. With their help, it will be possible to map the structure of the lunar crust and mantle.
• LDA will measure the ability of lunar regolith, i.e. dust and small rocks, to emit an electric field. The instrument will collect important information about the Moon’s internal structure, monitor dielectric changes caused by the changing angle of the Sun as the Moon rotates, and look for possible formation of frost or ice deposits.

All three devices will be placed near the Moon’s south pole, where there is believed to be abundant water ice and where several lunar bases can be deployed at once.

So far, the astronauts’ landing place has not been determined exactly. It is known that the astronauts will be taken to lunar orbit on the Orion spacecraft, where they will be transferred to the Moon lander, which is the version of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft.

Since Artemis 3’s mission plan will be determined later, there is no guarantee yet that all three devices will go to the Moon in 2026.

As I already wrote FocusSpaceX has not been able to conduct a fully successful test of the Starship spacecraft so far. Although it entered orbit on the third test flight, it crashed during landing.

But as I wrote before FocusSpaceX owner Elon Musk will use this spacecraft to conquer Mars and even fly to other stars.

Moreover Focus He wrote that scientists are considering special underground structures as one of the preferred places to build bases on the Moon.