![]() Its 8.8m pounds of core stage thrust, 15% more power than the Apollo-era Saturn V rockets, come from four RS-25 engines recycled from the space shuttle programme that ended in 2011.īill Nelson, the Nasa administrator, speaks to reporters at Cape Canaveral. Noting the symbolism in the programme’s name – in Greek mythology Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo – he added: “To all of us who gaze up at the moon, dreaming of the day humankind returns to the lunar surface … folks, we’re here.”ĭespite being a new rocket, SLS draws heavily from existing technology. This is a new type of astronaut,” Bill Nelson, the Nasa administrator and a former space shuttle astronaut, told a press briefing earlier this month. That mission almost 50 years ago also carried the final two of only 12 people, all men, ever to have set foot on the moon, Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan. ![]() Orion is uncrewed, other than mannequins that will allow Nasa to evaluate its next-generation spacesuits and radiation levels, and a Snoopy soft toy that will float around the capsule as a zero gravity indicator.īut a successful mission would propel the agency closer to its goal of sending two astronauts, including the first woman, for landing at the moon’s south pole by the end of 2025, while up to two others remain in lunar orbit in a command module.Īn interim second test flight, Artemis II, is scheduled for May 2024, carrying a crew of four to the moon and back, although not landing, and sending humans beyond low Earth orbit for the first time since Apollo 17 in December 1972. Monday’s scheduled test flight, which has a two-hour launch window and will last 42 days on a 1.3m-mile odyssey to 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the moon and back, includes two close fly-bys 62 miles above the lunar surface. “We are a go for launch, which is outstanding.” “This day has been a long time coming,” Nasa’s associate administrator Robert Cabana said after mission managers concluded a flight readiness review this week.
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