NASA is all systems GO at Kennedy Space Center in Florida tonight, as the countdown clock ticks towards a launch attempt at 8:33 a.m. EDT Monday morning with the maiden voyage of the Artemis-1 moon mission.
Artemis-1 will debut the most powerful rocket in the world, the Space Launch System (SLS), to send a new Orion Spacecraft on a 42-day uncrewed flight test to the moon and back.
Watch Artemis-1 Launch here:
It’s a full mission of the entire integrated system, from the ground support, to launch, to checkouts of Orion, flight to lunar orbit, and return to Earth. NASA wants to validate that everything works as designed, and stress Orion beyond what it was designed for, before launching the first astronauts on Artemis-II.
The countdown started at 10:23 a.m. EDT on Aug. 27, when the launch team arrived at their stations in the control room, located 3 miles from the launch pad.
Unlike Apollo, Artemis aims to establish a permanent human lunar presence learning to live and work at the moon, much the same as we have done now for decades with the International Space Station. NASA wants to establish a base at the South Pole, and put a small space station called Gateway into lunar orbit that will allow docking of cargo, crew, landers and other spacecraft, as well as additional segments to grow the outpost from commercial and international partners.
Weather Looks Positive But Not Guaranteed
But first, NASA needs to fly Artemis-1. Thunderstorms have been prolific across Central Florida the last several days, with lightning even striking the launch complex (no damage), but the U.S. Space Force Space predicts an 80% change of good weather for launch at 8:33 a.m. Skies will, however, begin to deteriorate to 60% by the end of the launch window (10:33 a.m.).
We reported previously on the new SLS rocket and Orion Spacecraft, which you can read here. At liftoff, SLS will produce nearly 9 million lbs of thrust, 15% more than the Apollo Saturn V and more than 31 times the thrust of a 747 jumbo jet.
Once launched, Orion will fly some 280,000 miles from Earth and thousands of miles beyond the Moon, using a different orbit than Apollo. It will fly 62 miles above the surface, and then use the Moon’s gravity to propel it into a deep retrograde orbit 40,000 miles above the surface, where it will fly and test for 6 days. Orion will then descend back into a low orbit and brush past the surface again at 60 miles to perform its engine firing to break away from the moon’s gravity, and then head back to Earth.
Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has ever done without docking to a space station, and will return home faster and hotter than any before it.
For now, all systems GO for launch at 8:33am EDT Aug 29.
