Cape Canaveral: NASA’s new Moon rocket took off on its maiden flight early Wednesday with three test dummies aboard, bringing the US closer to returning astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program 50 years ago. If all goes well during the three-week make-or-break shakedown flight, the rocket will propel an empty crew capsule into a wide orbit around the moon, and then the capsule will land in December for a splashdown over the Pacific. Will come back to earth with. , After years of delay and billions in cost, the Space Launch System rocket thundered skyward, rocketing from the Kennedy Space Center with 4 million kilograms of thrust and a speed of 160 kilometers per hour within seconds.
The Orion capsule sat on top, ready to blast out of Earth’s orbit toward the Moon less than two hours into the flight.
We are leaving.
for the first time, the @NASA_SLS rocket and @NASA_Orion fly together #artemis I begin a new chapter in human lunar exploration. pic.twitter.com/vmC64Qgft9— NASA (@NASA) November 16, 2022
Moonshot follows nearly three months of a horrific fuel leak that kept the rocket bouncing between its hangar and pad.
Forced indoors by Hurricane Ian in late September, the Rocket stood outside as Nicole swept in at more than 130 kilometers per hour last week.
Although the wind peeled off the 3-metre-high coking strip near the capsule, managers gave the green light for the launch.
NASA expected 15,000 to jam the launch site, with thousands lining the beaches and streets outside the gate, to see the long-awaited sequel to NASA’s Project Apollo, as in 1969 and 1972. 12 astronauts walked on the Moon.
Crowds also gathered outside the NASA centers in Houston and Huntsville, Alabama, to watch the spectacle on giant screens.
“For the Artemis generation, this one’s for you,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said shortly before liftoff, referring to the youth who didn’t survive Apollo.
Liftoff marked the beginning of NASA’s Artemis lunar-exploration program, named after the mythical twin sister of Apollo.
The space agency is aiming to send four astronauts around the Moon on the next flight in 2024 and land humans there in early 2025.
The 98-meter SLS is the most powerful rocket NASA has ever built, producing more thrust than either the space shuttle or the mighty Saturn V that carried men to the Moon.
A series of hydrogen fuel leaks affected launch attempts over the summer as well as the countdown tests.
A new leak occurred at a new location during refueling on Tuesday night, but an emergency team managed to tighten the faulty valve at the pad.
Then a US Space Force radar station went down, resulting in another scramble, this time to replace an Ethernet switch.
Orion should reach the moon by Monday, more than 370,000 km from Earth.
After coming within 130 km radius of the Moon, the capsule will enter an orbit about 64,000 km away.
The $4.1 billion test flight is scheduled to last 25 days, about the same time the crew will be aboard.
The space agency intends to push the spacecraft to its limits and uncover any problems before the astronauts get inside.
The mannequins — NASA calls them Moonquins — are equipped with sensors to measure things like vibrations, acceleration and cosmic radiation.
“There is considerable risk in this particular initial flight test,” said mission manager Mike Sarafin.
The rocket was supposed to do its dry run by 2017.
The government watchdog estimates that NASA will have spent $93 billion on the project by 2025.
Ultimately, NASA hopes to establish a base on the Moon and send astronauts to Mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s.
But many hurdles still need to be overcome. The Orion capsule will carry astronauts only to lunar orbit and not to the surface.
NASA has hired Elon Musk’s SpaceX to develop Starship, a 21st-century answer to Apollo’s lunar lander.
Starship will carry astronauts back and forth between Orion and the lunar surface, on a maiden voyage in at least 2025.
The plan is to have Starship and eventually other companies’ landers in orbit around the Moon, ready for use whenever the new Orion crew pulls in.
Echoing an argument made during the 1960s, Duke University historian Alex Roland questions the value of human spaceflight, saying that robots and remote-controlled spacecraft can accomplish the job more cheaply, efficiently, and safely. Can
“All these years, no evidence has emerged to justify the investment made in human space flight – except for the prestige involved in this conspicuous consumption,” he said.
NASA is waiting until this test flight is over before introducing the astronauts who will be on the next one and who will follow in Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s bootsteps.
Live Now: The #artemis The Age of Exploration Begins Today @NASAArtemis I, the first integrated test flight of the rocket and spacecraft that would land humanity on the Moon. watch @NASA_SLS And @NASA_Orion Embarking on his maiden voyage. https://t.co/Ngak08VFb0— NASA (@NASA) November 16, 2022
Most of NASA’s corps of 42 active astronauts and 10 trainees had not yet been born when Apollo 17 moonwalkers Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed the era, 50 years ago next month.
“We are jumping out of our spacesuits with excitement,” said astronaut Christina Koch, 43, hours before liftoff.
After nearly a year of space station missions and all-female spacewalks, she’s on NASA’s short list for a lunar flight.