TE24 Sci &Tech Desk:
Cape Canaveral Fla. (Reuters) – Kennedy House Middle’s floor assembly will launch NASA’s next-generation Big Moon rocket for its first flight on Saturday in hopes of resolving technical problems that have hampered a delayed preliminary calculation. Fail within 5 days ready for second attempt.
32-story home launch system “SLS”. The rocket and its Orion capsule lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 2:17 p.m. Daylight Saving Time. (1817 GMT) Artemis launches Program 50, NASA’s ambitious Moon-to-Mars program. Years after the last Apollo moon mission. (Photo: https://tmsnrt.rs/3PPRsbN)
A final preliminary proposal ended on Monday due to technical problems halting the count and delaying the unmanned flight. Jeremy Parsons, assistant manager of its program at the district center, told reporters Friday that an investigation showed technicians repaired a leaking gas pipe that caused Monday’s launch to be canceled.
Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin told reporters Thursday night that his two main problems with the rocket, a faulty engine temperature sensor and some cracks in the insulation foam, had been fixed, and NASA said they were satisfied.
Climate has always been an additional issue behind NASA’s leadership. The latest estimates, in line with pressure from the US House of Representatives in Cape Canaveral, give a 70% chance of winning in Saturday’s two-hour launch window.
If the countdown clock stops again, NASA could postpone the next launch attempt until Monday or Tuesday.
The mission, named Artemis I, is the first flight of the SLS rocket and Orion capsule built under its NASA contracts with Boeing and Lockheed Martin, respectively.
This is a major shift in NASA’s post-Apollo human spaceflight program after a long focus on low Earth orbit with the House Shuttle and Worldwide House Stations.
Artemis, named after Apollo’s twin goddess in ancient Greek mythology, has set a goal of returning astronauts to lunar soil as early as 2025. Twelve astronauts walked on the moon during the six Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972. It was the only manned space flight. Never land on the moon. But Apollo was not as scientifically savvy as Artemis, born out of the territorial rivalry between America and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The brand new lunar program has enlisted business partners equivalent to SpaceX and area businesses in Europe Canada and Japan to establish a long-term lunar base as a stepping stone to an eventual much more powerful human journey to Mars.
Lifting the SLS Orion spacecraft from the ground is an important first step. Its maiden voyage will see the £5.75 million vehicle push its design limits and it is hoped that the spacecraft will test its speed through rigorous test flights designed to show the spacecraft is suitable for astronaut flight. It is set.
If the mission is successful, Artemis II could be manned to the Moon as early as 2024 and the first lunar landing by astronauts in years. She is one of the many daughters of Artemis III.
Its SLS is the largest new vertical launch system built by a US company for the Apollo-era Saturn V, touted as the world’s most powerful and complex rocket. Barring any last-minute hiccups, Saturday’s countdown should end with the Rockets’ four major R’s. -25 engines and two solid-rocket boosters deliver about 15% more thrust at 8.8 million km. Push Saturn V to propel the spacecraft into the sky.
About 90 minutes after launch, the rocket’s upper stage lifted Orion out of Earth’s orbit before completing its 37-day flight 60 miles above the lunar surface before orbiting the moon 40,000 miles (64,374 km). You can move. His capsule that will bring Earth to Earth is scheduled to land in the Pacific Ocean on October 11.
Although there may not be people on board, Orion has three simulated crew members (1 male and 2 female mannequins).
The mission’s primary objective is to verify the robustness of Orion’s heat shield during re-entry. Orion will hit Earth at 24,500 miles per hour (39,429 km) or 32 times the speed of sound from its lunar orbit. Return pods are periodic re-entry from extra Earth orbit.
The thermal shield is designed to prevent friction during re-entry when the temperature outside the capsule rises to about 5,000 degrees (2,760 degrees Celsius).
The SLS Orion spacecraft, including design, construction tests and ground services, cost at least $37 billion after more than a decade of increases with years of delays and price hikes. NASA Workplace of Inspector General estimates that the total cost of Artemis will reach $93 billion.
NASA has championed the system as a boon to space exploration, creating thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in business.
(Reporting by Joe Rulet in Cape Canaveral, Fla. and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Schumacher)
