NASA’s new moon rocket launches 50 years after Apollo program – National

NASA’s New Moon rocket began its debut flight on Wednesday carrying three test dummies, marking the United States a major step forward in returning astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program 50 years ago. rice field.

If all goes well during the three-week shakedown flight, the Crew capsule will be propelled into a broad orbit around the Moon and will return to Earth in December after a water landing in the Pacific Ocean.

After years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns, the Space Launch Systems rocket thunders into the sky, rising from Kennedy Space Center with 8.8 million pounds of thrust, reaching 100 miles per hour in seconds. reached. The Orion capsule landed on top and less than two hours into the flight, he was out of Earth’s orbit toward the Moon.

“I was pretty overwhelmed,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “We go out to explore the sky. This is the next step.”

The moonshot follows about three months of nasty fuel leaks that kept the rocket bouncing between the hangar and the launch pad. Rocket, which was brought back indoors by Hurricane Ian at the end of September, was standing in place outdoors last week when Nicole was driven through by gusts of over 130 kilometers per hour. There was some damage from the wind, but the manager gave the go-ahead for the launch.

When 12 astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 to 1972, an estimated 15,000 people flocked to the launch site to witness NASA’s long-awaited sequel to the Apollo program, with thousands more at the gate. They lined the beach and roads outside. Crowds also gathered outside his NASA Center. We saw the spectacle on the big screen in Houston and Huntsville, Alabama.

Cheers erupted as the rocket followed a trail of enormous flames into space, with the half-moon shining brightly and buildings shaking as if they had been hit by a major earthquake.

“For the Artemis generation, this is for you,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson called out, referring to all those born after the Apollo. I’m talking

The liftoff marked the start of NASA’s Artemis Lunar Exploration Program, named after Apollo’s mythical twin sisters. The space agency says his next flight in 2024 will send four astronauts around the moon, and he aims to land humans on the moon as early as 2025.

At 98 meters, the SLS is the most powerful rocket NASA has ever built, with more thrust than the space shuttle or the mighty Saturn V that brought people to the moon. A series of hydrogen fuel leaks plagued the summer launch attempts and countdown tests. A new leak occurred at another location during refueling Tuesday night, but emergency teams were successful in tightening the pad’s faulty valve. has occurred. This time, I replaced the Ethernet switch.

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“Rocket, it’s alive. It’s squeaking. It’s ventilating. It’s pretty scary,” said Trent Trent, one of three men who entered the blast zone to repair a leak Tuesday night. Anise said, “My heart was pounding. My nerves were gone. But yeah, we showed up today.”

Orion should reach the Moon more than 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) from Earth by Monday. After reaching within 130 kilometers of the Moon, the capsule enters distant orbit about 64,000 kilometers away.

The $4.1 billion test flight is expected to last 25 days, roughly the same time that the crew will be on board. The space agency intends to push spacecraft to their limits and spot problems before astronauts board. A sensor is attached to measure it.

“Things are going to go wrong,” Nelson warned during the demo. A few minor issues have already occurred in flight, but interim indications were that the boosters and engines were working well.

“It’s definitely a relief that it’s underway,” mission manager Mike Sarafin told reporters. However, he added:

The rocket was supposed to have a dry run by 2017. Government watchdogs estimate that NASA will have spent her US$93 billion on the project by 2025.

Ultimately, NASA hopes to build a base on the moon and send astronauts to Mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s.

However, there are still many hurdles to clear. The Orion capsule will only take astronauts into lunar orbit, not on the moon.

NASA hired Elon Musk’s SpaceX to develop Starship, the 21st century answer to the Apollo lunar lander. Starship will take astronauts back and forth between Orion and the moon’s surface for at least the first trip in 2025. The plan is to place Starship and eventually other company landers in orbit around the Moon, ready to be used by the new Orion crew when they pull up.

Duke University historian Alex Rowland rests on an argument made in the 1960s, questioning the value of human spaceflight and suggesting that robots and remote-controlled spacecraft could make the job cheaper, more efficient and safer. said that it can be achieved in

“In recent years, there has been no evidence to justify investing in human spaceflight, except for the prestige that comes with this conspicuous consumption,” he said.

NASA will wait until this test flight is complete before introducing the next astronaut and the astronauts who will succeed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11.

When Apollo 17 moonwalkers Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt closed their era 50 years ago next month, most of NASA’s force of 42 active-duty astronauts and 10 trainees will still be there. I wasn’t born.

“We’re jumping out of our spacesuits with excitement,” astronaut Christina Koch said Tuesday.

After nearly a year of space station missions and an all-female spacewalk, Koch, 43, is on NASA’s shortlist for a lunar mission. So does 35-year-old astronaut Kayla Barron. Except for the launch of her own rocket a year before her, she finally witnessed her first rocket launch.

“It took my breath away and I was in tears,” Barron said. “What a great achievement for this team.”