NASA astronauts are set to take off Wednesday on a 10-day journey that will propel them to the moon, marking the first human return to the lunar surface in more than half a century.
The Lockheed Martin-built Orion capsule, which sits on a Boeing-made Space Launch System rocket, is scheduled to launch at 6.24 pm local time from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
About an hour before the scheduled launch, the space agency said it was solving a battery problem with the rocket, although it did not stop its launch.
The mission is a spacesuit rehearsal for the SLS rocket and long-duration Orion capsule, and is a milestone in Artemis’ multi-year mission to land humans on the moon once in 2028.
If the mission takes off on time, the four-man crew will travel the longest distance of anyone in history.
Around two o’clock in the afternoon, the astronauts dressed in bright orange suits came out of the crew, waving to cheering spectators and kissing their families, before entering the “astrovan” – a vehicle designated to bring astronauts to and from the launch site – bearing the symbol of Artemis II.
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President Donald Trump’s NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, and former astronaut and US Senator, Mark Kelly, attended the ceremony.
Earlier, European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher joined other NASA officials, lawmakers and industry executives on a press tour and held interviews. TV stations set up white tents on the lawn outside to catch the massive SLS rocket parked a few miles away.
The Artemis missions will attempt to replicate and achieve the leapfrog feats during the historic Apollo program that put Neil Armstrong and 11 other men on the moon in the 1960s and 1970s.
SEE THE ROCK
Viewing parties are planned across the country, including at major spaceports such as Seattle, Houston and Huntsville, Alabama, where the SLS main stage is being produced.
With Artemis – named after Apollo’s twin goddess – NASA aims to land on the moon for a long time. Isaacman created a ten-year US$30-billion plan to create a base on the moon where scientists could live and work.
Isaacman is also quick to make a major change to the overall mission, including the addition of a test mission in 2027 that will send a crew to land one of the manned moons built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
“America will never give up the moon,” Isaacman said as he unveiled plans for the moon.
The crew will spend about four days traveling to the lunar surface, where they will hover behind the moon – an area that is not visible from Earth. They are scheduled to fly to the lunar surface on April 6.
If the mission goes as planned, their path will take them within about 6,618 kilometers of the moon during their closest approach, and the orb appears the size of a basketball with an outstretched hand in the capsule’s window.
Commanding the Artemis II mission Wednesday is Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman, a 27-year-old Navy veteran and former head of the agency’s astronomy office.
Flying with her are NASA astronaut Victor Glover, the mission pilot, and Christina Koch, the mission scientist who led the first all-female spacewalk. They met Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who will be flying into space for the first time on this trip.
About three-and-a-half hours after landing, Glover will guide Orion closer to a piece of the SLS rocket as it orbits, demonstrating the ability to get close to another spacecraft. This method can be used to stop Orion and the future lunar landers who will land astronauts on the moon.
On the second day of the flight, the Orion spacecraft will ignite its main engine, sending the crew on its way to the moon.
The US is racing to return to the moon before China sends its astronauts there for the first time, a goal Beijing has set before the end of the decade.
A number of US China hawks, including US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, have dismissed Artemis as a race for good territory, sometimes referred to as the “high end” of the war.
China has not sent people to the moon, but it has not seen many achievements, including only living on the far side of the moon. The nation is also leading a project to build an international research center near the moon’s southern plate.
The Artemis II project is known for its many “firsts”. Koch will be the first woman to fly near the moon, while Glover will be the first Black astronaut to do the same. Hansen will also become the first Canadian to fly on the moon.
The mission marks only the second flight of the SLS rocket, which has already landed years behind schedule. The rocket and Orion suffered various schedule delays and cost overruns, setting the entire Artemis program back.
US Senator Kelly from Arizona, welcomed Isaacman’s new plans to build a lunar base, but he also shared doubts about NASA’s ability to land on the moon by 2028.
“It’s going to be tough,” Kelly told reporters before the crew boarded the capsule. “I don’t think that’s the case.
After NASA crews fly to the moon, gravity will pull them back to Earth.
On the tenth day of the mission, their capsule will re-enter the planet’s atmosphere and will descend under parachutes and splash into the Pacific Ocean.
A recovery ship and a team of divers from Nasa and the US Navy will join the capsule to pull the crew out of the water. BLOOMBERG
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