More than 50 years later, Humanity will step on the moon again. If all goes well it will be in 2024, and in the crew there will be a woman and a black person.
But first, some tests need to be done. That’s why next August 29, the first mission of the Artemis program it will launch without astronauts, but with the Orion module crammed with stuff. The Artemis I mission will reach the Moonwill circle around it a few times, and return to Earth.
The Moonikin Campos, Zohar and Helga mannequins, and even Shaun the sheep, will go into the Orion module to measure the radiation that the astronauts will suffer during the trip. And also, an Apple iPad equipped with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant.
One of the programs that NASA has underway for the Artemis project is the Callisto program.
Callisto is software created by Lockheed Martin. It is made up of the Alexa assistant, and a video conferencing software called Webex, created by Cisco. This software will run on computers equipped with 2002 processors.
NASA uses chips from 20 years ago because they are already well tested, and they are enough for what they need.
Is about a version of Alexa created to work on computers from 2002, and that it can also do it autonomously, without connecting to the internetsince there will be times when communication with Earth will be lost, on the hidden side of the Moon.
Alexa has also been adapted for accept the 2 second delays between the Earth and the Moon, and to ignore ship engines and other noises from space, according to the Amazon press release.
The problem is that on this first flight of the Armemisa I mission, there are no astronauts on board to talk to Alexa. So what NASA has done is install alexa on an ipad. The base controllers will speak through the iPad, and it will play the voice on amplified speakers so that Alexa understands it, and executes the order. You can see it in the opening photo of the news.
If all goes well, in future manned missions astronauts will use Alexa to give secondary voice commands to the Orion module, which activate commands associated with buttons that are difficult to access. But they will be secondary functions. Alexa will not control critical ship functions.
The Artemis I mission is ready to take off on August 29with a window open until September 7, if the weather turns against it. Half a century later, the return of Humanity to the Moon begins. We really want to see it!