Artemis 1: Why Shaun the Sheep is going on Nasa's next Moon mission!
- Published
Nasa's big plan to go back to the Moon - called the Artemis mission - is getting ready for its first blast off in a few weeks time. The first part of the project, Artemis 1, is an unmanned trip to the Moon, meaning no humans will be on board. But that doesn't mean nothing will be on it. In fact there's all sorts going up...
One of the key jobs of Artemis 1 is to test the whole spacecraft before humans go onboard for Artemis 2. So one of the important passengers is a dummy! This space mannequin, named Commander Moonikin Campos by the public, will sit in the craft like a human astronaut would. The mannequin is named after Arturo Campus, an engineer who helped bring the Apollo 13 mission safely back to Earth, and is strapped into the commander's chair at the head of the capsule.
Also on the mission are a load of badges, nearly 3,000 Artemis mission patches, over 500 US flags, a seed for a sycamore tree, a pebble from the Dead Sea, a USB stick with drawings and poems about space by citizens and students, and this collection of Lego figures! The four figures will be there as part of a partnership between NASA and Lego, aiming to engage kids in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects.
Another unlikely passenger is... Snoopy. This cuddly toy will go up as a 'zero gravity indicator'. These are small items carried aboard spacecraft to show when it has reached the weightlessness of microgravity. As they're soft and bouncy, having them float around helps scientists see what's happening without causing any damage!
And Snoopy won't be alone up there - Shaun the Sheep is going too! The Aardman and CBBC favourite has been picked to represent the European Space Agency's (ESA) role in the mission. David Parker, director for human and robotic exploration at ESA, said: "This is an exciting time for Shaun and for us at ESA. We're woolly happy that he's been selected for the mission... it's a giant leap for lambkind."
Nasa also likes to send mementoes from old missions on its space flights - so Artemis 1 will include a bolt from an engine of Apollo 11, the first mission that took humans to the Moon. A small moon rock collected during Apollo 11 will also be onboard.
This is far from the first time scientists have sent all sorts of strange objects into space - in 2019 they actually sent some slime to the International Space Station! This was so the astronauts aboard could play games with it, toss slime-filled balloons, make slime bubbles and even spray each other with slime in order to understand how a fluid, which isn't water, behaves in microgravity!
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