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00:04On the 1st of April, 2026, Artemis II launched into space.
00:10Looster ignition. And lift off.
00:15The first crewed mission in over 50 years, heading back to the moon.
00:20It's a place that has been special to me ever since I was young.
00:24I've always declared myself as a self-certified lunatic.
00:31I mean, what's not to love?
00:33It's always beautiful in the night sky.
00:35And sometimes it feels so close, you could almost touch it.
00:39So imagine my excitement when they announced that we're sending people back there.
00:45The journey of Artemis II around the moon is a historic moment in the current race to get back to
00:51the surface.
00:52And maybe one day beyond to other worlds.
00:57So tonight, we're diving in to what it actually takes to get back to the moon.
01:02What are the challenges we're facing in the new lunar race?
01:05And what we're already learning as we make that journey?
01:09Welcome to the Sky at Night.
01:41I'm going to tell you the story of our moon, but to do that, we're going to go back some
01:454.5 billion years.
01:47But don't worry, highlights only.
01:49Now, at the time, our solar system was filled with swirling gas and dust, and there was constant collisions going
01:56on.
01:57In all of that mess, the planets were forming.
02:00Now, it's believed that in this chaos, a mile-sized object called Thea struck the young nascent Earth in what
02:08scientists call the giant impact.
02:12From the debris of this collision, two worlds were formed, Earth and the moon.
02:19So these siblings traveled through the galaxy together as constant companions, with gravity shaping their partnership and keeping them together.
02:26Now, fast forward again a few billion years, and humans evolved.
02:30After thousands of years of looking up at the moon with wonder, technological advances meant that we could finally start
02:38to dream about reaching out and touching the moon.
02:42And so, in the 1950s, the first space race began.
02:50Now, the Soviets were the first to get a person into orbit.
02:54But it was the NASA Apollo missions that led the way in the race to the lunar surface.
03:00But it wasn't the one giant leap that we all remember.
03:04Apollo 1 was a sad and terrible disaster.
03:08But they learned from it.
03:10They redesigned the spacecraft.
03:12They did so much testing.
03:14And so we continued to inch closer and closer until Apollo 8.
03:20So this was the first time that they successfully got humans in orbit around the moon.
03:26Apollo 8, Houston, we just got it.
03:30He's on camera.
03:31This was followed soon after by Apollo 11 and five subsequent missions that successfully landed crews on the moon's surface.
03:39Roger, the EVA is progressing beautifully.
03:42They're setting up the flag now.
03:44And then, in 1972, it all just stopped.
03:50But today, over 50 years on, there's a new race to the moon.
03:55And while China's Changi mission has been leading the way with landers and sample returns,
04:01it's NASA's Artemis mission that has just taken a huge leap forward.
04:06Just as Apollo before it, the Artemis program hasn't been plain sailing.
04:13Artemis 1 was an uncrewed test flight using NASA's new SLS, its Space Launch System,
04:20the most powerful rocket they have ever built.
04:25This new system pushed through engineering delays and a global pandemic
04:30before finally looping around the moon in 2022.
04:35Then came Artemis 2, again delayed by years, then months, then weeks.
04:41It finally launched four crew members, including the first woman, the first black person,
04:46and the first non-American,
04:48on a 10-day journey of nearly 700,000 miles around the moon and back.
04:55The flight path for Artemis 2 travels 4,600 miles beyond the far side of the moon,
05:03further than any human has ever been before.
05:07And it's incredible to think where these astronauts have been.
05:14While it's exciting for us watching on,
05:17I'm meeting one of the few people on Earth
05:19who knows what it's like to go into space.
05:24In 1991, Helen Sharman blasted off on a Soyuz rocket for an eight-day mission,
05:30becoming Britain's first astronaut.
05:32If anyone can help me understand what it's like to go into space, it's her.
05:39I'm at Imperial College London's Space Engineering Laboratory
05:44to meet Helen, who is now a UK Outreach Ambassador here.
05:49Now, of course, you are an astronaut yourself.
05:52So what is it like actually going into space?
05:56This is just a really thrilling moment when you realise that actually
06:00there is only one way off that rocket, and it's going to be for you.
06:03It's going to be up into space, right?
06:05And one of these Artemis astronauts, it will be his first time ever in space.
06:09So it'll be his first ever real launch experience.
06:12And although we can train and do tests in a centrifuge where we're spun around a room,
06:16you don't hear the bumps and the bangs, you don't feel the jolts.
06:20But the most thrilling moment, actually, is when the fairing is jettisoned.
06:24So this, of course, is a protective layer that we put around a rocket
06:28and the spacecraft to stop us from being damaged by the atmosphere as we go through it.
06:31And as soon as that fairing is jettisoned, then light streams through the window.
06:37And if you are lucky, you get the view of the Earth.
06:40And yes, so in my launch, yes, I was sort of, my window was facing towards the Earth.
06:45So I could see the Earth's horizon.
06:47Of course, we were still launching.
06:48We were still getting further and further away.
06:50But there was that blue horizon.
06:52There was the blacker space above.
06:54Yeah, so thrilling.
06:55I mean, those views sound incredible.
06:57After the Apollo era, there was just a dip in interest in the Moon.
07:00We haven't been for such a long time.
07:03Why now?
07:04There's always been science, science about the Moon to learn,
07:07science that we can do while we're on the Moon.
07:09And that's not changed, although science has developed, of course.
07:12But I think what's happening now is that there is, first of all,
07:17the promise of what could be a lunar economy.
07:20And everybody wants to have a bit of that
07:22because it's actually forecast to be billions of dollars, actually, by the 2040s.
07:27But also, of course, there are other countries involved.
07:31China has stated a desire to not just land astronauts on the Moon,
07:35but to actually have operations there.
07:37There is this really strategic part of the Moon, and it's the South Pole.
07:41Now, if a country establishes a big enough operation there,
07:45they could get the best bits of the Moon,
07:48as well as this part of the Moon, which is not only, you know,
07:50it's bathed in sunlight if you go to the rim of the crater most of the time
07:53so you can power your equipment.
07:55We've got water ice there.
07:57The astronauts and for equipment of them making rocket fuel
08:00and possibly mining some of the rare earths there as well.
08:03So, a whole load of stuff, of reasons, actually,
08:06to want to go to the Moon and to go to the Moon quickly.
08:09Now we've got this political race all over again.
08:12So, are we then in another space race?
08:16I think we are.
08:17It's a space race now to get to the South Pole of the Moon.
08:23Water and power are essential for any lasting lunar base.
08:27And although being first grabs headlines,
08:29countries are really chasing long-term footholds.
08:34What are your hopes for the future of human space exploration?
08:38Oh, you know, I think what I really want to see
08:40is that international cooperation,
08:44so we're not just fighting each other to get the best bits of space
08:47and mining an asteroid and claiming it as ours.
08:50I want us to see us using that for the benefit of the Earth.
08:53You don't want to establish operations, let's say it is mining,
08:56and that's likely to be, you know, have quite a few vibrations,
08:58in an area that's maybe the best place to do some astronomy,
09:03you know, some, let's say radio astronomy,
09:05something like that, where you need a lovely, stable base for it.
09:09So, yes, I think we need that cooperation.
09:11Humans are just basically curious.
09:14We want to explore and find out more.
09:17And if we can sort out all of the operational stuff
09:20and the practicalities,
09:21the stars really are our limit.
09:25While Artemis II tests out the space technology
09:28that hopes to land humans on the Moon,
09:32our lunar future is also being driven steadily forward
09:35by remote and robotic missions.
09:38One man at the heart of this
09:40is space instrument engineer,
09:42Simeon Barber.
09:44Can you tell me what you're working on at the moment?
09:47At the moment, I'm working on a mission called Prospect.
09:50This is a European Space Agency project
09:52to develop a drill and a sample analysis package
09:56to go on a lunar lander in a couple of years' time.
09:59It will land near the South Pole of the Moon.
10:02And we're looking to understand,
10:04can we find water ice there buried beneath the surface?
10:07So you're using a drill to go below the surface?
10:09Yeah, so we want to get to about a metre below the surface
10:14because these are the depths that are probed by orbiters
10:18that have suggested that there might be concentrations
10:21of water at the poles.
10:23But they're just remote sensing measurements.
10:25It's very difficult to know how accurate those measurements are.
10:29So we're trying to get this survey of what is below the surface.
10:35But of the many uncrewed missions to the Moon
10:37over the last few years,
10:39there have been about as many failures as successes.
10:44So why are we finding it so hard
10:46when we had humans on the surface over 50 years ago?
10:50OK, we're go.
10:52We're go.
10:53Same time.
10:53We're go.
10:54So remember that Neil Armstrong did amazing things.
10:58He was steering it down.
10:59He was steering that spacecraft.
11:00And when he didn't like the look of the landing site,
11:03he flew to a safer place
11:05and landed with just seconds of fuel left.
11:07The eagle has landed.
11:10Humans are able to do that.
11:11At the moment now, we're doing robotic landings,
11:14and they're mainly based on vision-based navigation.
11:17So there are cameras looking at the terrain,
11:20comparing it to maps they have in their memory.
11:22The problem we've had recently is that,
11:24particularly near the South Pole,
11:25it's actually really difficult
11:27because the sun is always very low in the sky
11:29and you get very long shadows.
11:31Oh, yes.
11:32And it means that the maps that the cameras are using
11:36are very susceptible to changes in angles of illumination from the sun.
11:40So these vision-based systems are really getting confused by the environment.
11:44So we have had a number of failures,
11:47but are there lessons learned from these failures?
11:50Yeah, there's always lessons learned,
11:51and you learn by doing.
11:52I'm a great believer in that.
11:54So what's actually happening at the moment
11:55is that NASA has kind of catalyzed a new breed of commercial companies.
12:02So they've put out contracts and said,
12:04we would like to buy services which will deliver us a payload
12:08to the South Pole of the Moon or to the equator,
12:11and we're going to pay this amount of money.
12:13Who would like to bid?
12:14And they've created this kind of competitive environment.
12:17And the overall idea is that we try and come up with a new way
12:20of doing space exploration.
12:22Rather than sort of having one big mission
12:24where you've put everything into it,
12:25you're trying sort of smaller missions, but many of them,
12:28and then learning as we go along.
12:30Yeah, that's exactly what's happening.
12:32The idea is you try often.
12:34If you're going to fail, you fail early.
12:36You learn from that, and then you go again.
12:38So these missions are all robotic.
12:40No one dies if the mission goes wrong.
12:42It says one of the challenges with robotic missions
12:44is miniaturisation.
12:46Launching things into space is incredibly expensive.
12:49Yeah, so literally gravity has held us back.
12:53That's why we're on Earth, because of gravity.
12:56And as a space scientist, that's your enemy.
12:58And interestingly enough,
13:00there have been calculations recently saying that
13:02to get a kilogram of any kind of payload
13:05to the surface of the moon
13:07costs on the order of a million euros or pounds or dollars.
13:11You know, your currency of choice.
13:12The one million is the key thing.
13:15So that means every few grams we can save here and there
13:18is really, really worthwhile.
13:20So to give one example, this device is a mass spectrometer.
13:24So it's like a weighing machine for atoms on the moon.
13:28Now this kind of device would be huge in a laboratory.
13:32It would be the size of a microwave oven at least.
13:36So this isn't a scale model.
13:37This is actually the mass spectrometer.
13:38This is a real working instrument.
13:40So by miniaturising it to this size, which is about 100 grams,
13:44it's more acceptable to a spacecraft to have it on board.
13:47And it also means it's quite sensitive.
13:49When you make things small, they can become quite sensitive.
13:51So the performance can improve as well.
13:54So the technology evolves,
13:55but it's based on things that we've done before.
13:57In traditional space at least, we tend to be quite conservative.
14:00Of course, what's happening now with the moon and that there are more missions going
14:04and they tend to be faster and cheaper.
14:06It does mean you can take more risks because you get more opportunities.
14:10It's a new way of building instruments and allows us to be a bit more adventurous
14:14and try things, push the boundaries a bit.
14:19While organisations like NASA and ESA are looking at a new approach to space exploration,
14:25China's space programme is also breaking new lunar ground.
14:30Before 1959, we had no idea what was on the far side of the moon.
14:34It could have been literally anything to the delight of science fiction writers
14:38and the occasional conspiracy theorist as well.
14:40But then the Soviets sent their lunar 3 probe around the moon,
14:45sending back the first blurred pictures of the far side.
14:49And this is that first picture, showing the full disk of the far side.
14:52Even though the quality isn't great,
14:55you can see that it's different from the familiar near side
14:58that you see when you look up from here on Earth.
15:01The modern images make the comparison obvious.
15:04The near side has these dark, round features, which we call seas,
15:08but they're almost entirely missing on the far side,
15:11which instead has this fractured, scarred, cratered surface.
15:16So the two sides of the moon look very different.
15:19It was a surprising result then,
15:20and it's a fact that's puzzled astronomers ever since.
15:26Decades of remote analysis have given us a deeper understanding of the moon,
15:31revealing a more complex world than once suspected.
15:34The crust is thicker on the far side,
15:36and a collection of heat-producing elements, known as creep,
15:40cluster on the near side.
15:42So why is the moon so uneven?
15:45With only Apollo samples available,
15:47all of them from the near side,
15:49the answer remained out of reach until now.
15:54In 2024, China's Chang'e 6 collected and returned to Earth
15:59the first ever sample from the lunar far side.
16:02Scientists have been excitedly analysing it ever since,
16:05and one of them is just along the corridor.
16:13Geochemist Yang Li is based at Peking University,
16:16and affiliated with University College London.
16:19He's one of only a few people to have held the far side of the moon in his hands.
16:25Can you talk us through when you first saw the sample, and what it was like?
16:30It's very exciting, of course.
16:31So when you hold these samples, you know these are from the far side of the moon.
16:35This is the first time human beings ever hold a sample in hand.
16:39At the same time, this is a big responsibility,
16:42because everyone wants to know what you are going to get from these samples.
16:46Yeah. So with that responsibility,
16:48was it a big effort to try and get these results?
16:50Yeah. I lead a young group.
16:52We pretty much worked around the clock.
16:54We never felt tired, because you always get new things,
16:57and you always want to know more.
16:59It feels like you were on a lunar mission yourself.
17:01So tell us about this sample.
17:03What have you found out about this particular piece of the moon?
17:07The first thing we do is we date that by uranium lead dating,
17:11which is based on the decay of uranium to lead.
17:15And then we get an age of 2.8 billion years old.
17:17So this is relatively late in lunar history.
17:20Yeah, it's something like it's middle age.
17:22Great.
17:22So we know the age of the sample.
17:24Now, you were able to say something about the temperature at which it formed.
17:27Yeah. Once we know the age, what we do is we use both geochemical analysis and petrological modelling.
17:35We realise that the mantle from the far side is 100 Celsius degrees colder than its comparable mantle source from
17:45the near side.
17:46Hmm.
17:48Analysis of the sample produced an incredible discovery.
17:51Real insight into what was happening on the moon's far side some 2.8 billion years ago.
17:59And by comparing it with Apollo's near side samples, we discover a difference of 100 degrees Celsius existed in the
18:07past, just below the surface.
18:09To understand why, we need to look further back.
18:13When the moon was still cooling and its crust slowly forming, a leftover mix rich in potassium, rare earth elements,
18:21and phosphorus, known as creep, was still fluid beneath the surface.
18:26And because creep isn't spread evenly around the moon today, it may hold the key to its lopsided past.
18:35So, once you have this creep, you know, at that time, if you have impact happening at that right time,
18:43when the creep is near molten, you can push that creep from one side to the other side.
18:49So, it's literally something smashing into the moon and this material gets moved around.
18:54Yes.
18:54So, what's interesting about this idea for me is I think I'd assumed that when you talk about the difference
18:59between the near side and the far side,
19:01that it must have something to do with the earth?
19:03Actually, there is a hypothesis considering the earth's role in generating this to face the moon.
19:10OK.
19:10Yeah.
19:11So, when the earth and the moon was newly formed, the earth is also hot at the time.
19:17So, the side facing the earth potentially can have more radiation heat from the earth to the moon.
19:24Ah, OK.
19:24Yeah.
19:25So, it's the earth that's heating the moon potentially.
19:28Yeah.
19:28So, there are different hypotheses trying to explain why the moon has two dramatically different faces.
19:34It's possible that both this creep and the earth's shine are working at the same time.
19:41Yeah, yeah.
19:41We need more missions there and more samples.
19:43Yeah.
19:44Well, I'm all in favour of more missions.
19:48We haven't quite solved the moon's two-sided mystery yet.
19:52But the view from billions of years ago of both sides is getting us closer.
19:58While many dream of a future era of lunar exploration with boots on the ground, it's happening already.
20:05With missions like this one, we're learning more about the complex, surprisingly dynamic history of our nearest neighbour.
20:12And ultimately, whether it's robots or humans collecting it, we just want more data.
20:19Could the Artemis programme be on track to get us a step closer?
20:24Eight days before launch, I was lucky enough to speak with Kelsey Young, who leads the NASA mission's lunar science
20:31campaign.
20:32I asked her about her hopes for the mission.
20:36Artemis 2 is, of course, you know, first and foremost a test flight.
20:39We want to launch our crew members safely and get them home.
20:41So I'm really excited about the lunar science component of this mission and what our trained crew members and the
20:47Orion vehicle cameras will be able to do for us.
20:49So what sort of training have they had?
20:51When astronauts are first selected as astronaut candidates, they actually, as a part of their initial two-year astronaut candidate
20:57training flow,
20:58get four weeks of geology training, two weeks in the classroom and two weeks in the field.
21:02But beyond that, when they're assigned, we again had them back in the classroom, can't escape that classroom training.
21:08We've taken them out into the highlands of Iceland because it's a really lunar-like terrain.
21:13And then really critically, and especially lately, we've been working with them repeatedly in mission simulations.
21:19We actually have them able to practice using the cameras, practice giving the descriptions of the moon,
21:25and practice all of that in a flight-like environment.
21:27So they're going to be traveling over four and a half thousand miles from the far side of the moon.
21:34What sort of details can they see from that distance?
21:36It's a really unique vantage point.
21:38You know, Apollo missions flew much, much closer to the lunar surface.
21:42Artemis 2, as you point out, will be much farther away.
21:44It will be about the size of a basketball held at arm's length to the crew.
21:49So if you, you know, pick up your nearest basketball, hold it out at arm's length, that will be about
21:54the size of what the moon will appear to the astronauts with the unaided eye.
21:59And actually, you know, there's really interesting science that we can gain from that unique perspective.
22:04First of all, there are massive chunks of the lunar far side that human beings have never actually seen before.
22:10This is because of the unique trajectories that the Apollo astronauts did fly.
22:14And that's really interesting scientifically for a few reasons.
22:18One of them, my scientific background is impact cratering.
22:22And impact craters can actually toss material hundreds, if not thousands of kilometers across the lunar surface.
22:29So, you know, an impact feature that forms in the northern hemisphere of the moon can influence the southern hemisphere
22:35because it can toss material that far away.
22:38So having crew members have that whole disk view actually enables them to contextualize things they see across the entire
22:46disk in a way that we did not get those crew observations in Apollo.
22:50But then they also have an 80 to 400 millimeter zoom lens on board for one of their cameras that
22:56allows them to zoom into the micro, right, to use that zoom lens to interrogate features of interest that are
23:02really compelling for science.
23:03The examples that I really am excited about are color, color and albedo.
23:09So actually using the human eyeball, which is an incredibly robust detector to really describe nuanced color details across the
23:18entire disk of the moon.
23:20So understanding, you know, this region looks like it has an orange hue.
23:24And because of that, we might understand what processes were active in that section of the moon when.
23:29So I'm really excited to get that data back.
23:38And there go the first series of parachutes.
23:41After traveling further into space than any human being in history, the Artemis 2 journey ended with a safe splashdown
23:49on the 10th of April.
23:52Splashdown confirmed.
23:55Welcome home.
23:56I can't wait to find out what we've learned from this historic mission and these incredible explorers.
24:08But while we wait for more data from robots or astronauts, Pete's here to remind us of the simple joy
24:15moon gazing can provide for us here on Earth.
24:19Humans have been looking up at the moon for centuries.
24:21It's mysterious markings providing inspiration for mythology all around the world, with cultures seeing a man, a rabbit, a frog,
24:31and in modern times, even a basketball player.
24:35So what are those formations that we can see with the naked eye?
24:40Let's start with the large dark areas.
24:42Once thought to be seas, they're called maria and created by lava flowing into basins to form iron-rich volcanic
24:50rock that doesn't reflect much light.
24:52Prominent ones to look out for are Oceanus proselarum, the ocean of storms.
24:59Mare Imbrium, the sea of showers, with a distinctive semi-circular bay known as Sinus Iridum, the bay of rainbows.
25:09Mare Chrysium, the sea of crises.
25:13Mare Serenitatis, the sea of serenity.
25:17And Mare Tranquillitatis, the sea of tranquility, where Apollo 11 made its historic landing in 1969.
25:26The bright areas in between these features are known as the highlands and represent the oldest surface of the moon.
25:35One standout feature in the south is the impressive Tycho crater, whose beautiful rays were created by material that was
25:43ejected from the impact that formed it.
25:46These spread out virtually across the whole moon.
25:50The full moon is always impressive to the naked eye, but the direct lighting angle hides its rough and battered
25:58surface.
25:59To see these relief features, the light has to come in at a shallow angle.
26:03I can demonstrate this by shining a torch onto this 3D printed model of the crater Copernicus.
26:10If I shine it on directly, you can't see much detail.
26:13But if I move the torch around so the light is coming in obliquely, you can see the shadows which
26:19define all the surface structure.
26:22Incoming sunlight is most oblique near where the illuminated part of the moon meets the part which is dark.
26:28That's a line dividing the moon's night and day, and it's known as the lunar terminator.
26:35And it's here with binoculars the details really pop.
26:39Great targets to start with are the craters Copernicus, Plato and Tycho.
26:47If you have a small telescope, additional features can be seen.
26:51And here my picks would be the amazing Mons Apenninos,
26:57the distinctive Vallis Alps,
27:02and, of course, the wonderful Clavius Crater,
27:06which contains many additional craterlets within its walls.
27:12Even if you don't have a telescope, just keep looking up at the moon,
27:16and watch how its surface and features change from day to day.
27:22You never know, you may become hooked and want to progress your lunar journey
27:26by moving on to taking photographs of the moon,
27:30capturing stunning images like these which have been sent in to our Flickr account.
27:51But we have to end on some of the stunning images taken as Artemis II journeyed around the moon.
28:01Including those of this beautiful and delicate planet that we all call home.
28:10Wherever our exploration of the moon takes us,
28:13and no matter how long it takes to get people back to the surface,
28:17one thing is clear.
28:18The renewed global interest in lunar exploration
28:21will give us a better understanding of the origins of the moon
28:25and allow us to travel further than ever before.
28:29So, I'll keep on dreaming about landing one day on the lunar surface,
28:33and in the meantime, I'll keep looking up at that beautiful orb in the sky.
28:39That orb that has shone down on Earth for billions of years.
28:44Good night.
29:15Good night.
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