NASA announces thirdmega moon
After canceling a test flight earlier this week, NASA will attempt to launch its potent new Moon rocket again on Saturday, a NASA official said.
The NASA team “decided to move our launch date to Saturday, September the third,” according to mission manager Mike Sarafin.
Blastoff was supposed to launch on Monday morning but was postponed due to the failure of a test to bring one of the rocket’s four RS-25 engines up to the required temperature range for takeoff.
Tuesday’s media event saw Sarafin reveal the new launch date, and NASA afterwards tweeted that the two-hour launch window on Saturday will start at 2:17 p.m. (1817 GMT).
Although there is still a “very good opportunity” to launch on Saturday, according to launch weather officer Mark Burger, there is a 60% probability of rain or thunderstorms on the day of the launch.
The purpose of Artemis 1, which is named for Apollo’s twin sister, is to test the Orion crew capsule and the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket.
In place of the astronauts on the flight, mannequins with sensors will measure radiation, vibration, and acceleration.
50 years after the last Moon landing by Apollo 17 astronauts, tens of thousands of spectators, including US Vice President Kamala Harris, had assembled to watch the launch.
Operations to feed the orange-and-white rocket with extremely cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen were momentarily postponed prior to the scheduled Monday launch due to a risk of lightning.
The primary stage’s hydrogen filling was halted when a suspected leak was discovered. Following tests, the flow continued.
Later, NASA engineers found the issue with the engine temperature and decided to cancel the launch.
The Space Launch System program manager, John Honeycutt, stated that the sensor’s behavior “doesn’t fit up with the physics of the situation” and added that such sensor problems were “not particularly unusual.”
The team would meet again on Thursday to examine the situation, according to Sarafin.
Orbiting the Moon
To determine whether the Orion spacecraft is soon safe for habitation, it will orbit the Moon. Artemis plans to place a woman and a person of color on the Moon for the first time at some point in the future.
Orion will travel 42 days around the Moon, covering 40,000 miles (60,000 kilometers) at its furthest point and 60 miles (100 kilometers) at its closest point. This is the furthest space a human-carrying spacecraft has ever traveled.
Testing the capsule’s heat shield, the largest one ever built at 16 feet in diameter, is one of the key goals.
The heat shield will have to endure speeds of 25,000 miles per hour and temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) on its return to Earth’s atmosphere—roughly half as hot as the Sun.
The Artemis program, which is already years behind schedule, is anticipated to cost NASA $93 billion between 2012 and 2025, or $4.1 billion for each launch.
In the upcoming Artemis 2 mission, astronauts will orbit the Moon rather than touch down there.
The earliest that the Artemis 3 crew will set foot on the Moon is 2025.
Additionally, Artemis has its eyes set on a crewed voyage to Mars given that humans have already visited the Moon.
The Gateway orbiting space station and a facility on the surface are part of the Artemis program’s effort to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon.
For a trip to the Red Planet that would take at least many months, Gateway would act as a staging and refueling station.
