Jakarta –
Mission to the Moon Artemis I closer. NASA a step closer to determining an official launch date to bring the rocket there.
Currently the spacecraft and stacked rockets have been cleared to launch onto the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Thursday, March 17, 2022 for pre-launch tests.
The Orion spacecraft aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, also known as the Mega Moon rocket, will travel 6.4 kilometers from Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Launch Pad 39B, weather permitting.
“The launch will begin at 5 p.m. local time, and the rocket will take approximately 11 hours to reach its destination, carried by the Crawler-Transporter 2,” said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, director of NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program. Live Science, Wednesday (16//3/2022).
Once the spacecraft and rocket are positioned on the launch pad, engineers will need about two weeks to prepare for what is known as a ‘wet dress rehearsal’. It was so named, because these tests showed that the rocket could be loaded with supercooled liquid propellant.
A call to stations for the wet dress rehearsal rehearsal is likely to take place on April 1, and tanking operations are expected to begin on April 3, Blackwell-Thompson said.
Teams of engineers and technicians will also practice a launch countdown to test the rocket’s response to stop-of-flight scenarios, before completing drills, draining fuel tanks and preparing the rocket to return to VAB, which will take another eight to nine days.
Orion spaceship NASA can accommodate up to four people, but there will be no humans on board when the Artemis I mission flies later this year. In future Artemis missions, Orion will carry astronauts into space, support them during their missions on the Moon, and keep them safe when re-entering from space.
The SLS is the most powerful rocket NASA has ever made. The rocket produced 15% more thrust during takeoff and ascent than the Saturn V rockets that flew during the space program of the 1960s and 1970s. SLS will be able to carry a weight of more than 27 tons to the Moon.
After launch, provided all tests are successfully completed, NASA will set an official launch date for Artemis I. So far, Artemis I is listed as a probe that will launch no earlier than May 2022.
Artemis I is an unmanned mission that will fly thousands of miles beyond the Moon and then return to Earth after about three weeks. The next part of the mission, Artemis II, will take a crew to fly to the Moon, and the final stage of the program, Artemis III, will bring humans to the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 walked on the Moon in 1972.
With Artemis III, NASA would land the first woman and first non-white man on the moon. This milestone will also lay an important foundation for establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon, and will play an important role in a more ambitious space travel goal: sending the first humans to Mars.
“One of the things I said to our team today as we finished the pre-test was: take a moment. Appreciate this moment, because being first doesn’t come often in your career,” said Blackwell-Thompson.
Watch Videos “Bahrain Ready for Space Exploration with NASA’s Artemis“
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