American Firm Intuitive Machines made history last Friday when its lunar lander touched down on the Moon.
It’s the first private company to land on the lunar surface, and the first US mission in over 50 years.
The spacecraft will be conducting experiments and preparing for humans to return as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
Swinburne University Astrophysicist Dr Rebecca Allen told The Briefing what the lunar lander is doing and what NASA is preparing for:
The spacecraft landed on the South Pole region of the moon, the dark side, which has more craters and frozen water.
Dr Allen explained we could see “breakthrough innovations that could change the course of some areas of medicine and health monitoring on Earth.”
“We still don’t even have one thousand percent. You know concrete, this is how the moon formed,” she said.
Allen said that NASA has many objects for the trip that involve space science and exploration, using the moon as a pit stop to mars, and getting more diverse astronauts to space.
“If we want to continue our journey on to the moon to Mars, we have to have this stepping stone,” she said.
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