NASA’s most powerful rocket to launch 50 years after Apollo

NASA’s New Moon rocket began its debut flight early Wednesday morning with three test dummies on board, making the United States a major step forward in returning astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program 50 years ago. I stepped out.

If all goes well during the three-week shakedown flight, the rocket will propel an empty crew capsule into a wide orbit around the Moon, and the capsule will land in the Pacific Ocean in December before returning to Earth. .

After years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns, a Space Launch System rocket thundered into the sky, rising from the Kennedy Space Center with 8.8 million pounds (4 million kilograms) of thrust, taking seconds to reached 100 mph (160 km/h). The Orion capsule was above and he was ready to fly out of Earth orbit to the Moon in less than two hours from the start of the flight.

The moonshot follows about three months of nasty fuel leaks that kept the rocket bouncing between the hangar and the launch pad. The rocket, which was brought indoors by Hurricane Ian in late September, was on the ground outdoors when Nicole was driven through by gusts of over 80 mph (130 kmph) last week. A 3-meter (10-foot) high caulk near the capsule was blown away by the wind, but management gave the green light for the launch.

NASA said that when 12 astronauts walked on the moon in 1969 and 1972, 15,000 people jammed the launch site and scrambled outside the gates to witness NASA’s long-awaited sequel to the Apollo program. We expected thousands more to line the beaches and roads. Crowds also gathered outside his NASA Center. We saw the spectacle on the big screen in Houston and Huntsville, Alabama.

“For the Artemis generation, this is for you,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said shortly before launch, referring to the young people who didn’t live for Apollo.

The liftoff marked the start of NASA’s Artemis Lunar Exploration Program, named after Apollo’s mythical twin sisters. The space agency says his next flight in 2024 will send four astronauts around the moon, and he aims to land humans on the moon as early as 2025.

At 322 feet (98 meters), the SLS is the most powerful rocket NASA has ever built, with more thrust than the Space Shuttle or the mighty Saturn V that brought people to the moon. A series of hydrogen fuel leaks plagued the summer launch attempts and countdown tests. A new leak occurred at another location during refueling on Tuesday night, but the emergency team managed to tighten the failed valve on the pad. A U.S. Space Force radar station then went down, causing another scramble. It’s time to replace the Ethernet switch.

Orion should reach the Moon more than 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) from Earth by Monday. After reaching within 80 miles (130 kilometers) of the Moon, the capsule will enter distant orbit about 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) away.

The $4.1 billion test flight is expected to last 25 days, roughly the same time that the crew will be on board. The space agency intends to push spacecraft to their limits and spot problems before astronauts board. A sensor is attached to measure it.

“There is considerable risk in this particular first flight test,” said mission manager Mike Sarafin.

Rocket was scheduled to run a dry run by 2017. A government watchdog estimates that NASA will have spent her $93 billion on the project by 2025.

Ultimately, NASA hopes to build a base on the moon and send astronauts to Mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s.

However, there are still many hurdles to clear. The Orion capsule will only take astronauts into lunar orbit, not on the moon.

NASA hired Elon Musk’s SpaceX to develop Starship, the 21st century answer to the Apollo lunar lander. Starship will take astronauts back and forth between Orion and the moon’s surface for at least the first trip in 2025. The plan is to place Starship and eventually other company landers in orbit around the Moon, ready to be used by the new Orion crew when they pull up.

Duke University historian Alex Rowland rests on an argument made in the 1960s, questioning the value of human spaceflight and suggesting that robots and remote-controlled spacecraft could make the job cheaper, more efficient and safer. said that it can be achieved in

“In recent years, no evidence has emerged to justify investing in human spaceflight, except for the prestige that comes with this conspicuous consumption,” he said.

NASA will wait until this test flight is complete before introducing the astronauts who will take part in the next flight and who will succeed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11.

When Apollo 17 moonwalkers Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt closed their era 50 years ago next month, most of NASA’s force of 42 active-duty astronauts and 10 trainees will still be there. I wasn’t born.

“We’re jumping out of our spacesuits with excitement,” astronaut Christina Koch, 43, said hours before launch. After nearly a year of her space station missions and an all-female spacewalk, she’s on NASA’s shortlist for a lunar mission.