NASA launches Artemis I rocket bound for the moon
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NASA’s Artemis 1 finally blasted off from launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 6:41am this morning, several hours behind schedule, and is currently making its way to the Moon in a spectacular mission that comes after months of delays. The $93billion (£78billion) mission will see the unmanned, 322-feet-tall Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the world’s most powerful rocket, is sending an empty crew Orion capsule into orbit on a historic journey. If successful, the mission will pave the way for returning humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972.
The rocket took off after initial launch delays in the early hours of the morning due to a late repair after a hydrogen fuel line leak. Later a lost radar which aids communication between ground teams also sparked concerns but the issue was later resolved and operators finally got the green light for blast off.
It is currently travelling at more than 21,900 miles per hour, with everything now appearing to go to plan on the 25-day, 1.3million-mile journey to the Moon and back. The mission is set for a Pacific Ocean splashdown on December 11, which is vital for the Artemis 2 and 3 flights that will follow.
NASA Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said in a statement following the successful take-off: “On behalf of all the men and women across our great nation who have worked to bring this hardware together to make this day possible, and for the Artemis generation, this is for you.”
NASA Administrator, Bill Nelson, told Newsweek earlier this year: “We’re going back to the moon after 50 years, to stay, to learn, to work, to create, to develop new technologies and new systems and new spacecraft in order to go to Mars … This is a tremendous turn of history.”
All four of the Orion capsules’ were later since been deployed, which was followed by the SLS rocket has also reaching main engine cutoff (MECO) in the mission timeline. The RS-25 engines were also powered off and the core stage of the world’s most powerful rocket later separated.
Also aboard the rocket are ten cubesats — box-shaped miniature satellites with 3.9-inch-long faces — as part of its cargo, each with scientific missions of their own, such as NASA’s Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map). This is will be studying the presence of water ice at the Moon’s poles.
According to NASA, Artemis I “will be the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems. The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will be an uncrewed flight test that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration, and demonstrate our commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond.
“During this flight, the spacecraft will launch on the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans have ever flown. It will travel 280,000 miles from Earth, thousands of miles beyond the Moon. Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before.”
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Orion is still attached to SLS, but it will soon become detached from the rocket and will soon propel itself to the Moon with three different engines. This is helped out by eight auxiliary thrusters to provide assistance to the orbital maneuvering system engine, pushing it on outbound path to the Moon.
The Orion capsule then completed a perigee raise manoeuvre (PRM), and later fired its ICPS RL-10 engine to raise the lower point of the spacecraft’s orbit (perigee), preparing Orion for “trans-lunar injection burn,” which lasted 18 minutes. This is the process that puts the spacecraft on a path to the Moon, free from Earth’s gravitational pull.
A key part goal of the mission will be the testing of Orion’s heat shields as the craft — uncrewed, but bearing three radiation-measuring “phantoms” — goes through atmospheric re-entry.
This morning’s launch marked NASA’s third attempt after technical issues in previous other attempts earlier this year on August 29 and September 3 were scrubbed due to fuel line leaks and other issues.
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NASA said it was expecting somewhere around 100,000 visitors to the area, eager to watch the historic rocket blast through the atmosphere on its maiden flight.
But this may not be the only time lucky spectators can catch a glimpse. If the Artemis I mission is successful, it will be followed up by Artemis II in around May 2024. This will see a four-person crew get taken 5,523 miles beyond the Moon — further than any human has ever been from the Earth — on an 8–10 day flight test.
And this is not the only planned future mission. NASA is also hoping to launch its Artemis III mission, which will see four astronauts travel in an Orion capsule to the planned Lunar Gateway space station in the Moon’s orbit, spending a total of 30 days in space.
Two of these explorers will then be taken down to the lunar surface by the Gateway’s “human landing system”. The astronauts will spend will spend around a week exploring the surface of the Moon’s South Pole, which humans have never been to before.
Dr Daniel Brown, an astronomy expert at Nottingham Trent University, said: “The early blast off of NASA’s Artemis rocket marks the end of a long wait to put the unmanned Orion spacecraft into orbit and on its way around the Moon. If we think the wait for the final go-ahead was a tense thing to go through, just wait for another 26 days when the Orion capsule returns to Earth.
“The big test will be to see how the new heat shield of that unmanned spacecraft withstands the high entry speeds into our atmosphere that are 32 times faster than the speed of sound. That matches the fastest speed a human has ever travelled, achieved during the re-entry of the Apollo 10 crew in 1968. This means that the heatshield will have to withstand temperatures close to 3,000 degrees – another nail biting moment.”
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