Astronaut Group & Moon Pod Essay Winners Visit Artemis I

NASA astronaut candidate Marcos Berrios poses for a photograph in front of NASA’s Artemis I Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft atop the mobile launcher on the pad at Launch Complex 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sept. 2, 2022. The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration and demonstrate our commitment and capability to extend human presence to the Moon and beyond. The primary goal of Artemis I is to thoroughly test the integrated systems before crewed missions by operating the spacecraft in a deep space environment, testing Orion’s heat shield, and recovering the crew module after reentry, descent, and splashdown. In later missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the surface of the Moon, paving the way for a long-term lunar presence and serving as a steppingstone on the way to Mars.