NASA’s ambitious 1-month Artemis mission is to return to the platform, one last time, before launch.
It Artemis 1 The stack will operate on its approximately 4-mile (6.4 km) journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center to Launch Complex 39B on Aug. 18. NASA Confirmed on Friday (August 5). This launch will keep Artemis 1 on track to begin its weeks-long unmanned journey around the Moon at the latest. August 29.
Artemis 1 will place space launch system (SLS) megarocket dan Orion spaceship With their move to ensure reliability before astronauts make similar trips a few years from now — some even reach the lunar surface, if NASA’s plans bear fruit.
Next launch is coming Intensive system certification And more than a decade of planning.
“Our team has worked very, very hard for a very long time to get to this point,” Rick Labrode, Artemis 1 flight manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, said in a live briefing Friday. He added that the mission was “very special. We are very excited.”
Related: NASA’s Artemis 1 Moon Mission: Live Update
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Artemis 1 will mark SLS’s first launch and only the second for Orion, which entered Earth orbit in 2014. If all goes to plan on August 29, SLS will roar through the atmosphere to reach orbit in just 8.5 minutes. The top stage of the massive Orion rocket will deploy into lunar injection orbit about 80 to 90 minutes after liftoff.
This feat would kick off an action-packed 42-day journey in space for Orion, assuming liftoff occurs on August 29 (mission times change slightly depending on launch date).
“There’s no time to really catch your breath. We really managed to run,” said Judd Friling, JSC Ascent and Entry Journey Director for Artemis 1.
When Orion floats to the moon, the top stage of SLS will be tasked with deploying Cubes for the moon and other sciences As it propels itself in an orbit around the sun.
Orion will target the moon orbit the world. He will stay there for a few weeks, then get gravitational assistance from the Moon to travel back to Earth.
The spacecraft has three main targets in Artemis 1, each designed to display endurance. Mission team members wanted to show Orion that it could safely return through Earth’s atmosphere, could operate consistently in a “flying environment” from launch to start, and could keep astronauts safely indoors during recovery after returning home.
Outreach activities, such as taking selfies of its solar panels, will seek to keep the public engaged on long journeys (as made possible by Orion’s data transmission speed from space).
For example: “When we get to the point where we are actually the furthest from a human-classified spacecraft, the furthest from any spacecraft. Apollo The vehicle is gone, we want to immortalize it at a public event,” Labrude said.
Related: How NASA’s Artemis Lunar Landing Works for Astronauts
The last major milestone in the Orion mission is A High speed re-entry Through the Earth’s atmosphere, with the aim of reaching a water distribution site off the coast of San Diego. He’ll descend into the Pacific Ocean under a parachute, and just before he arrives, maneuver your “downward” maneuver to slide into the ocean waves at just the right angle.
There, the vehicle’s power will continue for about two hours to test how well Orion can maintain cooling for the astronauts. NASA officials say a US Navy ship will retrieve the Orion, capturing the spacecraft from the water.
After the mission will come months of analysis to confirm that SLS and Orion are indeed ready to take humans. The current timeline calls for Artemis 2 for the moon-orbiting crew loft in 2024 and for Artemis 3, the first human-landing mission on the moon since then. Apollo 17 in 1972, to land on the surface no later than 2025.
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