NASA's CubeSat, 10 Other Satellites to Join Artemis Mission to the Moon Soon!

The Space Launch System (SLS) is not traveling alone while preparing to head back to its launch pad for its first trip to the moon. A ticket for a ride to lunar orbit is now available for NASA's water-scouting CubeSat.

NASA's CubeSat to Join SLS-Artemis Mission

The stony and dusty regolith surface of the moon is of interest to scientists because it can absorb and release water, NASA said.

But the space agency can map these changes as they take place on the moon, thanks to Lunar IceCube's investigation of this process.

The exosphere, or region that resembles a fragile atmosphere that surrounds the moon will also be studied by Lunar IceCube.

Scientists will be able to forecast seasonal variations for lunar ice that might influence its utilization as a resource in the future by knowing the dynamics of water and other chemicals on the moon.

All of this will be possible with a 31-pound CubeSat that is efficient and economical. One of the CubeSats transported to the Moon by Artemis 1 is Lunar IceCube.

Lunar IceCube will orbit the moon and utilize a spectrometer to look into lunar ice. Lunar IceCube will increase NASA's understanding of lunar ice dynamics despite earlier missions having found water ice on the moon.

(Photo : Red Huber/Getty Images)
The Artemis 1 Moon rocket with the Orion capsule sits on Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center on April 8, 2022, in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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Other Satellites Joining Artemis 1

BioSentinel, a study run by NASA's Ames Research Center in California to look at how radiation from deep space affects living things, is one of the ten rideshare missions delivered to Kennedy Space Center in time for Artemis 1.

Before being transferred to the VAB for stacking on the Space Launch System, BioSentinel was the final of the ten CubeSats to be put into the Orion Stage Adapter.

According to Spaceflight Now, the following nine rideshare payloads will also launch with Artemis 1:

ArgoMoon: After being released from the Orion Stage Adapter, a tiny satellite will be used for this mission to conduct proximity maneuvers around the SLS upper stage.

High-resolution photographs of the upper stage will be given by ArgoMoon, a service offered by the Italian Space Agency in collaboration with the Italian business Argotec, for historical record-keeping.

CuSP: The CubeSat for Solar Particles Research, or CuSP, will go into interplanetary space and orbit the sun.

Before they reach Earth, where they might cause geomagnetic storms and other space weather phenomena, CuSP will study particles and magnetic fields flowing away from the sun.

EQUULEUS: The Earth-moon L2 Lagrange point is beyond the far side of the moon and will be reached by the EQUilibriUm Lunar-Earth point 6U spacecraft.

The project created by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the University of Tokyo will take pictures of Earth's plasmasphere, watch for impacts on the far side of the moon, and show off low-energy trajectory control procedures close to the moon.

LunIR: According to NASA, the Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper, created by Arizona State University, will map the hydrogen composition of the whole South Pole of the moon at high resolution, including areas that are continuously shaded.

Lunar IceCube: The Morehead State University in Kentucky is in charge of this project, which will orbit the moon using an infrared spectrometer to look for signs of water and organic compounds on the surface and in the lunar exosphere.

NEA Scout: To direct itself toward a flyby with a tiny asteroid, the NEA Scout mission will deploy a solar sail. The Marshall Space Flight Center and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory created the miniature spaceship.

OMOTENASHI: The University of Tokyo and JAXA jointly designed the NAno Semi-Hard Impactor mission, which will attempt a "semi-hard" landing on the moon's surface utilizing a solid rocket engine as one of the Outstanding MOon exploration TEchnologies by NAno Semi-Hard Impactor.

Team Miles: This privately manufactured CubeSat will test a tiny plasma propulsion system in outer space. With Florida-based Fluid & Reason LLC, Miles Space leads the Team Miles mission.