WASHINGTON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – One of the final and most important test stages before humans go back to the moon for the first time since 1972 when the most powerful space rocket to ever leave Earth takes off from its Florida launchpad on Monday.
At 8.33am ET (1.33pm UK time), Artemis 1, consisting Orion, a six-person deep space exploration capsule, atop the Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket that is 98m (322ft), weighing 2,600-tonne (2,875-ton) is to make its first flight from the same Cape Canaveral launch facility that hosted the Apollo lunar missions about fifty years ago.
Along with the breathtaking fire display that is anticipated to attract tens of thousands of spectators to Florida’s space coast, Nasa is eager to highlight the advancements it has made in its quest to send people back to the moon.
After mission managers completed a review on flight readiness that week, NASA’s associate administrator Robert Cabana stated that the day had been a long time coming. They were ready to launch, which was fantastic.
The planned test flight on Monday comprises two near fly-bys 62 miles above the lunar surface and will last 42 days on a 1.3 million mile journey to 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the moon and back. The test flight has a two-hour launch window.
Orion is unmanned; its only equipment is a Snoopy plush toy that will float about the spacecraft as a gauge of zero gravity and mannequins for NASA to test its next-generation spacesuits and levels of radiation.
However, if the mission is successful, NASA will be one step closer to achieving its objective of sending two astronauts, including the first woman, for a landing at the south pole of the moon by 2025 end, while up to two other people remain in lunar orbit in a command module.
For the first time since Apollo 17 in December 1972, the interim second test flight Artemis II will fly a crew of four to the moon and back but not land. It is set for May 2024. It will also be the first time since Apollo 17 in December 1972 that humans will be sent beyond low Earth orbit.
Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, the last two of just 12 men to ever set foot on the moon, were also aboard that mission nearly 50 years ago.
It was now the Artemis generation. They had been in the Apollo era. It was now a new generation, the NASA administrator and a former space shuttle astronaut, said during a press conference earlier this month, adding that it was a new type of astronaut.
SLS is a new rocket, but it substantially incorporates current technologies. Four RS-25 engines recovered from the space shuttle programme, which came to an end in 2011, provide the rocket’s 8.8 million pounds of core stage thrust, 15% greater power than Saturn V rockets from the Apollo period.
Similarly, the two five-stage solid rocket boosters were enhanced with the latest technology and were based on three decades of knowledge and experience obtained with the space shuttle booster, NASA said.
