After obtaining authorization from the team of engineers, the Artemis I mission is in the countdown with the aim of enabling “another important step for humanity” in the challenge of returning with a manned flight to the Moon.
The expectation is that the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will begin to be activated at 3:04 am this Wednesday (16), at Brasilia time and, integrated with the unmanned spacecraft Orion – and with the ground systems at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center – start the flight from Florida. The launch will have a window of two hours to start.
According to the United States space agency, the first Artemis mission “will pave the way for a manned test flight and future human lunar exploration” and, later, for an even greater challenge: the first manned flight to Mars. The live coverage of briefings and mission-related events will be broadcast on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the site from the agency??
third try
This will be the mission’s third launch attempt. The first, on August 29, was postponed after a defect in a temperature sensor was found. The other postponement was on September 4, when a leak of liquid hydrogen was identified in an interface between the rocket and the mobile launcher.
NASA even considered a launch on the 12th. However, problems caused by Hurricane Nicole in a seal – between a warhead of the launch abort system and an adapter of the crew module – caused the departure to be postponed again before even before the countdown starts.
The program foresees unmanned and manned missions in the coming years. The initiative is being implemented in a period of great advances in space exploration, marked by the discovery of water molecules in lunar soil and by technological missions to the planet Mars.
Artemis I’s first unmanned trip marks a series of tests in the Moon’s orbit, both in terms of equipment and the Orion capsule, which should carry up to four astronauts on the second stage of the mission, scheduled to take place by 2026.
The mission intends to expand operations in the solar system, in order to build a permanent, sustainable lunar base and make the Moon a support point for projects on Mars.
The return flight to the Moon, organized by NASA in partnership with 21 countries, including Brazil, represents the return to the satellite 50 years after the last manned trip, in 1972, with the Apollo Mission.
