By Cheyenne Macdonald For Dailymail.com
Published: 23:03 GMT, 12 March 2019 | Updated: 23:06 GMT, 12 March 2019
View
comments
NASA will finally open a series of samples brought back from the surface of the moon nearly 50 years after they were collected during the Apollo missions.
The space agency revealed this week that it has selected two teams to analyze the decades-old materials from Apollo 15 and 17, some of which have never been opened on Earth.
Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center will investigate the lunar samples to better understand the abundance of organic compounds on the moon, and how these materials withstand the effects of cosmic rays.
Scroll down for video
NASA will finally open a series of samples brought back from the surface of the moon nearly 50 years after they were collected during the Apollo missions. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin is shown above during the first lunar landing of the Apollo 11 mission
In a statement in March, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine doubled down on plans to send humans first to the moon and then to Mars and said NASA is on track to have humans back on the moon by 2028.
The plan relies on the developing Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, along with the Gateway orbital platform.
SLS and Orion are expected to be ready for their first uncrewed test flight in 2020.
Construction on Gateway – an orbiting lunar outpost – is expected to begin as soon as 2022.
‘We will go to the Moon in the next decade with innovative, new technologies and systems to explore more locations across the lunar surface than ever before,’ Bridenstine said on Monday.
‘This time, when we go to the Moon, we will stay.
'We will use what we learn as we move forward to the Moon to take the next giant leap – sending astronauts to Mars.'
In a statement in March, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine doubled down on plans to send humans first to the moon and then to Mars and said NASA is on track to have humans back on the moon by 2028.
The plan relies on the developing Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, along with the Gateway orbital platform.
SLS and Orion are expected to be ready for their first uncrewed test flight in 2020.
Construction on Gateway – an orbiting lunar outpost – is expected to begin as soon as 2022.
‘We will go to the Moon in the next decade with innovative, new technologies and systems to explore more locations across the lunar surface than ever before,’ Bridenstine said on Monday.
‘This time, when we go to the Moon, we will stay.
'We will use what we learn as we move forward to the Moon to take the next giant leap – sending astronauts to Mars.'
NASA selected the two proposals as part of The Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) program.
The space agency is hoping to get the most out of its past excursions to the moon ahead of its next lunar missions, planned for the 2020s.
In addition to samples that have never been opened on Earth, others have sat in cold storage since they were collected in the early 1970s.
‘This is a unique and exciting opportunity to use state-of-the-art techniques on lunar samples that have been preserved for almost 50 years and to study questions that scientists at the
