It’s a New Space Era, and its beginning is coinciding in dates with the end of the Apollo program – with exactly 50-years gap in between!
Yesterday, 11 December, NASA’s new mission to the Moon – Artemis – had their uncrewed capsule “Orion” splash back to Earth successfully, after having traveled 1.4 million miles through space, orbited the Moon, and brought in images, data and basically, was a test for the future Artemis crewed mission to be going to the Moon.
("Artemis" being the twin sister of "Apollo" in Greek mythology could not be more fitting as a mission name, especially with the goal of not only landing on the Moon again in the near future, but to have a female astronaut do so for the first time in history.)
Exactly 50 years ago, this very week, the crew of Apollo 17 were in space and on the Moon (December 7-19, 1972), and it was on the very first day of that mission, on 7 December, when one of the most iconic and globally-distributed photo was taken, entitled: "Blue Marble".
It was taken from 29,000 kilometers (18,000 miles) from Earth. It is still considered to be a very unique photograph due to the location and distance of the spacecraft in relation to the Earth.
With the Artemis mission, also on their first day in flight, they too took an iconic photo of the Earth, this time with cameras mounted outside of the Orion spacecraft, a selfie (a word that did not exist 50 years ago) of us all, and this time, from 92,000 kilometers (57,000 miles) from Earth – the Blue Marble from afar. (Photo below.)
The day that picture was taken, Sandra Jones, from NASA Communications read the following during the live coverage of the testing of the imagery at mission control in Houston:
"This view of Earth captured from a human rated spacecraft not seen since 1972 during the final Apollo mission some 50 year ago. The views of the blue marble in the blackness of space now capturing the imagination of a new generation; the Artemis generation."
The serendipity and the parallels between Apollo and Artemis are fun to observe, but the New Space Era is without a doubt here!
Yesterday (11 December) alone, these are the events that took place:
1) Artemis mission’s Orion capsule successfully splashed down on Earth after +25 days in space and orbiting the Moon and giving us magnificent photos!
And what a stunning photo this one here is just seconds before the splashdown!
NASA spokesperson Rob Navias said during the agency's livestream of the event on Sunday:
"Splashdown! From Tranquility Base to Taurus-Littrow to the tranquil waters of the Pacific, the latest chapter of NASA's journey to the moon comes to a close: Orion back on Earth."
(Tranquility Base and Taurus-Littrow were the landing sites of Apollo 11 and Apollo 17, the first and final Apollo moon landing missions, respectively.)
2) Japan's ispace (a privately owned startup) had their HAKUTO-R mission 1 (more missions to come) launched towards the Moon in the morning of the 11th (won’t be there for months), via a SpaceX rocket, and with payloads by:
-NASA (USA): a "Lunar Flashlight" -United Arab Emirates: "Rashid" the rover -Canada: an AI System by Mission Control, and lunar cameras by Canadensys a collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency.
Photo from the SpaceX launch with ispace's HUKUTO-R mission seen here traveling through space.
(If the HUKUTO-R mission succeeds in landing on the lunar surface, Japan and the UAE with their rover Rashid, will be the new nations to do so, after only the US, Russia and China that have successfully landed a robot on the Moon.)
And just to add to this date, but exactly one year ago today, BLUE ORIGIN had their NS-19 (New Shepard) launch with a crew of six, including Laura Shepard, daughter of Alan Shepard, the first American man to go to space, and whose namesake is of the Blue Origin spaceflight program "New Shepard". On that flight were also: Evan Dick, Dylan Taylor, Michael Strahan, and the first father-son duo, Lane Bess and Cameron (who is also the first publicly pansexual person in suborbital space).
Photo to the right is about an hour after the launch, where crew members, their guests, New Origin employees, and Jeff Bezos himself (seen here with Laura Shepard), gather in celebration of the successful launch, by the standing booster rocket which has landed vertically and as designed to do so.
(Photo taken by me.)
The Boom of the Space Industry is definitely here! The New Space era, comprising of privately own companies, startups, and actors from various industries but with space-based missions, and innovations that didn’t exist back in the 60s, are the combined elements that are now showing exponential changes in the future of the Space Sector, hence the New Space Era of our time.
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