HARTFORD, Conn. — NASA's Artemis-I mission concluded Sunday as the Orion spacecraft returned to earth. The trip marks a major step in the plan to eventually send humans back to the moon.
The Artemis-I mission comes to an end after nearly a month in space. It's meant to pave the way for future astronaut missions.
The liftoff marked the start of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration program, named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister. The space agency is aiming to send four astronauts around the moon on the next flight, in 2024, and land humans there as early as 2025.
No one was on board the debut flight, which made a trip around the moon.
The point of this mission: to study how the Orion spacecraft performs thousands of miles beyond. The ultimate goal is to establish a long-term presence on the moon for scientific discovery and economic development.
"This is a new system. We haven't flown a system like this since Apollo really that's capable of reaching the moon so it's a brand-new rocket, a new crew capsule that we're testing, and we needed to make sure the entire system works before we put people on board," said Paul Slaboch, Director of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Hartford.
Connecticut has a reason to celebrate the groundbreaking mission as 44 companies in our state are supplying NASA with products for the Artemis expedition.
"Those companies all contributed to this mission over the last many years that it's been in development, and those companies, they're supplied by the engineers and the workforce here in Connecticut. Here at the University of Hartford, we've got the only aerospace engineering program in the state," said Slaboch.
Ultimately, NASA hopes to establish a base on the moon and send astronauts to Mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s.
Angelo Bavaro is an anchor and reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at abavaro@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
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