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Shaun the Sheep to fly to the Moon on NASA spacecraft
Aardman’s Shaun the Sheep will be the first Bristolian to be sent to the Moon.
The famous stop motion farm animal will be one selected guests onboard a NASA spacecraft – the unmanned Artemis I .
It will see the toy Shaun fly almost 311,000 miles (500,000 km) from Earth.
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Representing the European Space Agency (ESA) on the space agency’s first mission to the Moon since 1979, the flight will kick off a program which will eventually return astronauts to its surface.
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The European Space Agency’s (ESA), director for human and robotic exploration, Dr David Parker, said: “It is an exciting time for Shaun and ESA.
“We’re very happy he’s been selected for the mission and we understand, although it might be a small step for a human, it’s a giant leap for lambkind.”
On the mission, Shaun will be joined by Snoopy, over 500 US flags, a seed for a sycamore tree, a pebble from the Dead Sea, a USB stick with drawings and poems about space by citizens and students, and a collection of Lego figures. They will be there to to show when it has reached the weightlessness of microgravity.
The spacecraft will perform a flyby of the Moon, using lunar gravity to gain speed and propel itself more than 43,000 miles (70,000 km) beyond the Moon.
Lucy Wendover, marketing director at Aardman, said: “Aardman is excited to be joining ESA in making history by launching the first ‘sheep’ into space.
“As one of the first astronauts to fly an Artemis mission, Shaun is leading the way in lunar exploration, a great honour for our woolly adventurer.”
Main photo: Aardman Animation
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