Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Snoopy is heading to space on NASA’s Artemis I moon mission

By

Snoopy is gearing up for a flyby of the moon as part of NASA’s upcoming Artemis I mission.

Slated for early 2022, the mission will be a test flight for NASA’s new SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft that in the next couple of years will help to put the first woman and first person of color on the lunar surface.

Recommended Videos

For the crewless test mission, a Snoopy kitted out in custom-made NASA gear will act as a zero-gravity indicator so that operators on the ground will be able to see when the spacecraft has escaped Earth’s gravitational pull.Snoopy in a NASA spacesuit.

Snoopy actually has a history with NASA dating back to the Apollo 10 mission in 1969. The space agency explains: “Apollo 10 astronauts Gene Cernan, John Young, and Thomas Stafford traveled all the way to the moon for one final checkout before the lunar landing attempt. The mission required the lunar module to skim the moon’s surface to within 50,000 feet and ‘snoop around’ scouting the Apollo 11 landing site, leading the crew to name the lunar module Snoopy. The Apollo command module was labeled Charlie Brown, after Snoopy’s loyal owner.”

NASA even created the Silver Snoopy award during the Apollo era and to this day Snoopy silver pins are presented to NASA employees and contractors for outstanding work related to mission success and flight safety.

“Each silver pin given with this award, depicting astronaut Snoopy, was flown in space,” NASA said. “Continuing the tradition, Artemis I will also carry a package of silver Snoopy pins for future recognitions.”

NASA also hopes that making Snoopy a part of the Artemis missions will help to inspire children to learn more about space exploration and engineering, with the agency planning to release lots of related learning materials for use in the classroom.

Besides the Snoopy doll and Snoopy pins, the Orion capsule will also carry a manikin fitted with sensors that will help NASA learn more about how various stages of the flight will affect the human crew taking the same route in the Artemis II mission in 2024, as well as the Artemis III lunar landing mission, which could take place in 2025.

We should note that the Artemis I mission won’t actually be Snoopy’s first trip to space. The popular character also took a ride on Space Shuttle Columbia during the STS-32 mission in 1990 and also traveled to the International Space Station aboard a Cygnus spacecraft on Northrop Grumman’s 12th cargo resupply mission in 2019, making Snoopy a pretty accomplished space explorer.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
NASA eyes levitating robot train for the moon
Artist concept of novel approach proposed by a 2024 NIAC Phase II awardee for possible future missions depicting lunar surface with planet Earth on the horizon.

An artist's concept of novel approach proposed by a 2024 NIAC Phase II awardee for possible future missions depicting lunar surface with planet Earth on the horizon. NASA/Ethan Schaler

NASA is exploring the idea of building a railway on the lunar surface that uses levitating robots to provide “reliable, autonomous, and efficient payload transport on the moon.”

Read more
NASA’s Orion spacecraft has ‘critical issues’ with its heat shield, report finds
The Orion crew module for NASA’s Artemis II mission.

The Orion crew module for NASA’s Artemis II mission. NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA is intending to use its new Orion capsule to send astronauts to the moon under its Artemis program, but a new report finds that issues with the capsule's heat shield could be a risk to crew safety. The report from NASA's inspector general was released this week and details issues with the heat shield, which lost some material during the first flight of Orion during the Artemis I mission in 2022.

Read more
NASA selects 9 companies to work on low-cost Mars projects
This mosaic is made up of more than 100 images captured by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter, which operated around Mars from 1976 to 1980. The scar across the center of the planet is the vast Valles Marineris canyon system.

NASA is expanding its plans for Mars, looking at not only a big, high-budget, long-term project to bring back a sample from Mars but also smaller, lower-cost missions to enable exploration of the red planet. The agency recently announced it has selected nine private companies that will perform a total of 12 studies into small-scale projects for enabling Mars science.

The companies include big names in aerospace like Lockheed Martin and United Launch Services, but also smaller companies like Redwire Space and Astrobotic, which recently landed on the surface of the moon. Each project will get a 12-week study to be completed this summer, with NASA looking at the results to see if it will incorporate any of the ideas into its future Mars exploration plans.

Read more