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Astronauts on NASA’s Artemis II mission are in flight, preparing for the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years.
NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket lifted off from Launch Pad 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:35 p.m. EDT Wednesday, sending four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft on a planned test flight around the Moon and back.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a news release; “Artemis II is the start of something bigger than any one mission. It marks our return to the Moon, not just to visit, but to eventually stay on our Moon Base, and lays the foundation for the next giant leaps ahead.”
The successful launch is the beginning of an approximately 10-day mission for NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen. As the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis program, among its objectives, the flight will demonstrate life support systems for the first time with crew and lay the foundation for an enduring presence on the Moon ahead of future missions to Mars.
After reaching space, Orion deployed its solar array wings, enabling the spacecraft to receive energy from the Sun, while the crew and engineers on the ground immediately began transitioning the spacecraft from launch to flight operations to start checking out key systems.
NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya explained; “Over the next 10 days, Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy will put Orion through its paces so the crews who follow them can go to the Moon’s surface with confidence. We are one mission into a long campaign, and the work ahead of us is greater than the work behind us.”
About 49 minutes into the test flight, the SLS rocket’s upper stage fired to put Orion into an elliptical orbit around Earth. A second planned burn by the stage will propel Orion, which the crew named “Integrity,” into a high Earth orbit extending about 46,000 miles beyond Earth. After the burn, Orion will separate from the stage, flying free on its own.
In several hours, a ring on the rocket’s upper stage, which will be a safe distance away from the spacecraft, will deploy four CubeSats – small satellites from Argentina’s Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales, German Aerospace Center, Korea AeroSpace Administration, and Saudi Space Agency – to perform scientific investigations and technology demonstrations.
The spacecraft will remain in high Earth orbit for about a day, where the crew will conduct a manual pilot demonstration to test Orion’s handling capabilities. The astronauts, with Mission Control Center teams at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, will continue checking spacecraft systems.
If all systems remain healthy, mission controllers will give Orion’s European-built service module a command to conduct the translunar injection burn on Thursday, April 2. This move is an approximately six-minute firing to send the spacecraft on a trajectory that will simultaneously carry crew around the Moon, while also harnessing lunar gravity to slingshot them back to Earth.
During a planned multi-hour lunar flyby on Monday, April 6, the astronauts will take photographs and provide observations of the Moon’s surface as the first people to lay eyes on some areas of the far side. Although the lunar far side will only be partially illuminated during the flyby, the conditions should create shadows that stretch across the surface, enhancing relief and revealing depth, ridges, slopes and crater rims that are often difficult to detect under full illumination. Crew observations and other human health scientific investigations during the mission, such as AVATAR, will inform science during future Moon missions.
Following a successful lunar flyby, the astronauts will return to Earth and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
NASA’s SLS is powered by Boeing-built core stage.
“We’re honored to support NASA in restoring a capability vital to our nation’s interests and future,” said Steve Parker, president and chief executive officer of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, in a company news release. “Boeing and our Space Launch System partners are committed to NASA’s mission to return astronauts to the moon, to establish a sustained lunar presence, and continue our exploration of deep space.”
The core stage demonstrated several important operations, including the pre-launch fueling of both tanks, actuating the hydraulic system, igniting the engines, running thrust vector control programs in flight, depleting the fuel tanks, shutting down the engines, and conducting successful separation and disposal maneuvers.
The core stage of the rocket stands at 212 feet (almost 65 meters) and consists of a 196,000-gallon liquid oxygen tank and a 537,000-gallon liquid hydrogen tank. It also includes an intertank section that joins the two fuel reservoirs, a forward skirt that connects to the upper stage, and an engine section at the bottom with four RS-25 engines, which together produce 2.2 million pounds of thrust. A Boeing team manufactures the core stage at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, and uses components made by suppliers in more than 38 states.
The Boeing team is preparing the next core stages for the Artemis III to V missions, which are already in production at Michoud and Kennedy.
NASA’s Orion spacecraft is built by Lockheed Martin.
The Orion spacecraft for this mission – named Integrity by its astronaut crew – features several new systems to help keep humans safe in deep space. These include:
“Our team has poured years of precision, problem solving and passion into building Orion and seeing it on its way to taking astronauts around the Moon in this test flight is incredible,” said Kirk Shireman, VP and Orion program manager at Lockheed Martin Space, in a company news release.
“We are excited for this mission to prepare for future crewed flights, seeing humans go farther than we’ve gone before and proving the Moon is once again within our reach.”
The public can track Orion and its crew in real time during the mission, including distances from the Earth and Moon, mission duration, and more. NASA’s Artemis Real-time Orbit Website (AROW) will create visuals from Orion data. Updates will also be sent out in real-time over Lockheed Martin Space’s X channel.
Photo credit: Kim Shiflett and Bill Ingalls / NASA
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