NASA is going back to the Moon, and your students can go along….in name at least.
An upcoming NASA mission, dubbed Artemis I, will be the first unmanned flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft. It will fly to the Moon, around it, and back to Earth. The flight paves the way toward man’s return to the Moon and the eventual establishment of a moonbase for deeper space exploration. The return will also see the first woman and the first person of color to step foot on the Moon.
The launch date for Artemis I has not been set, but NASA expects it to be sometime in the summer of 2022, perhaps as soon as May.
Until then, you can click right here to visit the NASA website, where you can enter your name into a database that will be included on a flash drive that will fly aboard Artemis I. It’s easy for students to enter their name, and teachers can do it as well.
When you enter your name, you are asked to provide a custom pin number, which will generate a personalized boarding pass that can be saved as a digital image or printed! Be sure to save your PIN, as NASA promises you will need it to access your boarding pass in the future.
As the launch date nears, NASA will provide more resources for those who registered to follow along. They will be accessible using the PIN number.
Here’s what the pass looks like, with our name attached to it!
According to NASA, when the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS) lifts off from the historic Launch Complex 39B at the newly-modernized Kennedy Space Center in Florida, it will “demonstrate our commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond.”
NASA offers a number of STEM/STEAM resources on its website for grades K-12, so it will be easy to use the Artemis I mission to introduce some lessons to the classroom. Click here to see their STEM/STEAM resources.
Here’s NASA video of the preparations for the Artemis I launch.
Be sure to share this with other teachers!