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Washington (AFP) – 50 years after the last Apollo mission, the Artemis program is set to take over lunar exploration with a test launch on Monday, August 29, of the most powerful rocket in NASA history.
NASA’s goal is to return humans to the Moon after the 1972 Apollo mission, and eventually to Mars.
The 98-meter Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is scheduled to blast off Monday at 8:33 a.m. (1233 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.
The mission, planned for more than a decade, is unmanned but highly symbolic for NASA, given pressure from China and private competitors like SpaceX.
Hotels around Cape Canaveral are packed and between 100,000 and 200,000 spectators are expected to attend the launch.
The huge orange and white rocket has been stationed at KSC’s Launch Complex 39B for a week.
“Since it was posted on the platform last week, you can feel the excitement, the energy,” says Janet Petro, director of the KSC. “It’s really palpable,” she adds.
The objective of the flight, baptized Artemis 1, is to test the SLS system and the Orion crew capsule located at the nose of the rocket.
Sensor-equipped dummies will take the places of crew members and record acceleration, vibration and radiation levels.
In addition, cameras will capture every moment of the 42-day journey and a selfie of the spacecraft will be taken with the Moon and Earth in the background.
Splashdown in the Pacific
The Orion capsule will orbit the Moon and come within about 100 km at most and then fire its engines to reach a distance 64,000 km farther, a record for an aircraft suitable for carrying humans.
One of the main objectives of the mission is to test the capsule’s heat shield, which at almost five meters in diameter is the largest ever built.
On its return to Earth’s atmosphere, the heat shield must withstand a speed of more than 40,000 kilometers per hour and a temperature of 2,760 degrees Celsius.
Orion, whose descent will be stopped by parachutes, will end its journey with a splashdown off the coast of San Diego, in the Pacific.
Monday’s liftoff will depend on weather, which can be unpredictable in Florida at this time of year, so NASA looked at a two-hour launch window.
If the rocket cannot take off on Monday, alternative dates are planned for September 2 or 5.
NASA gave the green light for the mission last Tuesday after a detailed inspection.
That doesn’t mean things can’t go wrong when it comes to the first flight of the capsule and rocket.
“inherent risk”
“We’re doing something that’s incredibly difficult to do, and with that comes inherent risk,” said Mike Sarafin, manager of the Artemis 1 mission.
Because it is an unmanned flight, Sarafin says the mission will continue in conditions that would not be suitable for travel with astronauts.
“If we failed to deploy solar panels we would continue, and that’s something we wouldn’t necessarily do on a manned mission,” he explained.
An overall mission failure would be devastating for the program that costs $4.1 billion to launch and is already behind schedule.
The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts to orbit the Moon without setting foot on its surface. The Artemis 3 crew is expected to land on the moon no later than 2025.
While the Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon were only men, the Artemis program plans to include the first woman and the first black person.
And considering that humans have already visited the Moon, Artemis has his sights set on another goal: sending a crew to Mars.
The Artemis program aims to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon with a space station known as the Gateway and with a base on the lunar surface.
Gateway would serve as a staging and refueling station for the journey to Mars, which would take months at a minimum.
“I think it will be even more inspiring than Apollo,” says former astronaut and NASA associate administrator Bob Cabana of the Artemis mission.
“It will be absolutely impressive.”
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