Countdown clocks began Monday for the inaugural launch of NASA’s new Space Launch System rocket on a long-awaited mission to send an unmanned Orion crew capsule around the moon and back.
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s first female launch director, called her team to their stations in Cooking Room 1 at the Kennedy Space Center and began the carefully scripted 46-hour, 10-minute countdown. at 10:23 a.m. EDT.
“At this time, we are not working on any major issues,” he told reporters at a pre-flight press conference. “So I’m happy to report and everything is progressing as planned.”
Lightning strikes one of the three 600-foot towers that protect Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center, where NASA’s new SLS moon rocket is set for launch at 8:33 a.m. EDT Monday. Spaceflightnow.com
Shortly after the briefing, lightning struck two of the three 600-foot-tall guard towers surrounding the SLS rocket on Launch Pad 39B. The strike prompted a review of the data to ensure no sensitive power systems were affected, but initial checks indicated the strikes were of “low magnitude”.
If all goes well, engineers working by remote control plan to begin pumping 750,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel into the giant SLS rocket’s center stage at 12:18 a.m. EDT Monday, setting the stage for the explosion at 8:33 am, the opening. of a two-hour window. Forecasters are predicting a 70 percent chance of good weather.
The 42-day unmanned test flight of the $4.1 billion SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule is a major milestone in NASA’s push to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon for exploration long-term and to test the necessary equipment and procedures for an eventual period of several years. flights to mars
“With the launch of Artemis 1 on Monday, NASA is at a historic turning point, poised to begin the most significant series of human and scientific exploration missions in more than a generation,” said Bhavya Lal , NASA’s associate administrator for technology, policy and strategy.
“We are ensuring that the agency’s architecture for human exploration is based on a long-term strategic vision of a sustained US presence on the Moon, Mars and throughout the Solar System.”
But mission manager Mike Sarafin cautioned, “This is a test flight. We keep in mind that this is an intentional stress test of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System rocket. It’s a new creation, it is a new rocket and a new rocket spacecraft to send humans to the moon in the next flight.
“This is something that hasn’t been done in over 50 years and it’s incredibly difficult. We’ll learn a lot from the Artemis 1 test flight… We understand there’s a lot of excitement about it, but the team is very focused.”
One question mark entering the countdown is the status of a 4-inch liquid hydrogen quick-disconnect fitting that leaked during a practice countdown and power test on June 20.
The fit was repaired after the rocket was transported back to NASA’s assembly building. But hydrogen leaks don’t usually appear unless the equipment is exposed to cryogenic temperatures — in this case, minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit — and that won’t happen until it starts powering Monday morning.
If a leak is detected that violates safety standards, the release will be cleaned up. But Blackwell-Thompson said she’s confident the adjustment will work out as normal.
“You don’t really get the full test until you do it in cryogenic conditions,” he said in an interview. “So we think we’ve done everything we can to correct this issue, and certainly on launch day, as part of our payload, we’ll know for sure.”
Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson is seen in a file photo at his post in Firing Room 1 at the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Control Center. NASA/Kim Shiflett
The primary goals of the Artemis 1 mission are to verify the performance of the giant SLS rocket, test the Orion crew capsule, and bring it safely back to Earth, ensuring that the 16.5-foot heat shield wide of the capsule can protect the returning astronauts. from the high-velocity heat of reentry.
A mannequin equipped and equipped in space, “Moonikin Campos”, and two artificial female torsos will help scientists measure the radiation environment of deep space, along with vibrations, sound levels, accelerations, temperatures and pressures in the cabin of the crew throughout the mission.
If the flight goes well, NASA will move forward with plans to launch four real astronauts into a free-return orbit around the moon in late 2024, followed by a mission to land two astronauts near the moon’s south pole already in 2025.
That flight will depend largely on continued funding from Congress, the development of new spacesuits for moonwalkers, and SpaceX’s progress in developing a lunar lander based on the design of its futuristic Starship rocket, which has yet to fly to the space
NASA administrators say they are optimistic, but it is not yet known how realistic the 2025 landing goal might be.
“We’re working like it is. We have to, otherwise it ends up being an open question that we never get to,” said astronaut Randy Bresnik, who added that SpaceX is “working toward that pace as well.”
“And that gives great hope that if we’re going to get there, we’ll have the right partner for this first mission,” Bresnik said. “The suits and the spaceship, the moon landing, they all go hand in hand. We can’t have one without the other. So we’ll have more clarity in the coming months.”
More from William Harwood
Bill Harwood has been covering the US space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. It covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s Neptune flyby, and dozens of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”