![]() The station-keeping at the Lagrange points on the way to the Moon was designed to avoid Earth’s long shadows and to keep the spacecraft operational. 22, 2010, by which time P1 had completed about four revolutions around L2. The second spacecraft, ARTEMIS P2, arrived at L1 on Oct. This was the first time that a spacecraft had successfully entered orbit around an Earth-Moon libration point. 25, 2010, an engine burn propelled ARTEMIS P1 into orbit around the Earth-Moon L2 Lagrange point, located on the far side of the Moon, about 38,000 miles (61,300 kilometers) above the lunar surface. This phase included a lunar flyby on March 28, 2010, by ARTEMIS P2. On the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, July 20, 2009, ARTEMIS P1 and P2 officially began low thrust maneuvers that, over the course of the following year-and-a-half, led them to the L2 and L1 Lagrange points, opposite the near and far sides of the Moon, respectively. The “P1” and “P2” designations were from the THEMIS mission which used “P1” and “P2” to denote the operational orbits of THEMIS B and C. In this new mission, THEMIS B and C were renamed ARTEMIS P1 and ARTEMIS P2, respectively, and redirected to study the Earth-Moon Lagrange points, the solar wind, the Moon’s plasma wake, and the interaction between Earth’s magnetotail and the Moon’s own weak magnetism. On May 19, 2008, Space Sciences Laboratories, developer of the spacecraft at University of California–Berkeley, announced that NASA had extended the THEMIS mission to 2012 and that two of the THEMIS satellites, B and C, would be sent into lunar orbit as part of a new mission under the name ARTEMIS (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun). In a “string-of-pearls” configuration, the five satellites carried out their initial mission without any significant anomalies. After a burn of the third stage, the five THEMIS spacecraft-initially joined but soon separated-were deposited into a 290 x 54,270 mile (469 × 87,337-kilometer) orbit around Earth at 16 degrees. The satellites were originally launched to study a type of magnetic phenomena called substorms in Earth’s magnetosphere that tend to intensify auroras near Earth’s poles.Įach of the five satellites carried identical instrumentation. The two Artemis lunar orbit missions were repurposed from the original Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission that involved five NASA satellites: THEMIS A, B, C, D and E. 22, 2010: ARTEMIS-P2 Arrives at the L1 Lagrange Point In Depth: ARTEMIS (THEMIS) 25, 2010: ARTEMIS-P1 Arrives at the L2 Lagrange Point 1, 2009: THEMIS-P1 and P2 are Reassigned, Renamed and Redirected to the MoonĪug. ![]() ARTEMIS is the first mission to orbit the Moon's Lagrangian points-points on either side of the Moon where the Moon and Earth's gravity balance perfectly.The twin orbiters have contributed to lunar and Earth science and have provided data on the solar wind.Įarth–Moon L1 and L2 Lagrange Points, Lunar OrbitsĬape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.Both spacecraft arrived in lunar orbit in 2011.NASA redirected the two probes to the Moon. They were originally part of the successful THEMIS mission that orbited Earth and studied the aurora. NASA's ARTEMIS mission (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon's Interaction with the Sun) is made up of two probes: P1 and P2. ![]()
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