LOS ANGELES, July 27 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has returned to the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) with training for the Artemis program, a robotic and human moon exploration program led by NASA.
According to a report of KSNV, a news channel based in Las Vegas of Nevada, on Thursday, the U.S. Energy Department, which oversees the NNSS, said NASA scientists and engineers returned for the first time in over 50 years and the recent training exercise there was the first of related training work for the brand-new moon mission.
The Energy Department found no other place on Earth that had as many large, deep craters as the NNSS, the report said, adding that the place also had the Icecap Tower in Yucca Flat, which was nearly identical in dimensions to the lunar lander that would return Americans to the moon.
The Artemis program is intended to reestablish a human presence on the moon for the first time since 1972. And its long-term goal is to establish a permanent base on the moon to facilitate the feasibility of human missions to Mars.
According to the schedule of the program formally established in 2017, Artemis 3 would be the first crewed lunar landing mission in the program and would be operated no earlier than December 2025.
However, launching the Artemis 3 mission in 2026 is likely to be a challenge, according to NASA's inspector general, which reported in 2021 that based on the average delay of major NASA spaceflight programs, the moon lander may not be ready for crew flights until 2028.
The 3,500-square-kilometer NNSS is located about 105 kilometers northwest of Las Vegas.
"Located in a remote, highly secure area of southern Nevada, the NNSS is a premier outdoor, indoor, and underground experimentation site. It is a preferred location for experiments supporting the National Nuclear Security Administration's nuclear weapons Stockpile Stewardship Programs, national defense programs, and national security research, development and training programs, as well as vital programs of other federal agencies," NNSS's official website read. ■