NASA is all systems GO at Kennedy Space Center in Florida tonight, where the space agency’s giant new 322-ft tall Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft stand ready to launch the maiden voyage of the Artemis missions, a new era of American human space exploration to return people to the moon.
Liftoff of Artemis-1 is scheduled for 1:04am EST late tonight (early Wednesday morning, Nov 16) from historic pad 39B, from the same stretch of beach that once launched Apollo moon missions and 135 space shuttle flights.
NASA’s live launch coverage (above) starts at 10:30pm EST, although they are also providing live updates throughout various countdown milestones too (like fueling).
More powerful Than Apollo
The mammoth rocket is a bit shorter than the Apollo Saturn V, but it’s more powerful, and evolvable to launch both crews and cargo to the moon. At liftoff it will become the most powerful operational rocket to ever fly, producing nearly 9 million pounds of thrust to send Orion on a month-long un-crewed flight test to the moon and back.
The mission aims to put the entire system through its paces from launch, to flight, to return and splashdown. The spacecraft will be stressed beyond what astronauts will experience, and go through its paces with various tests and checkouts to validate its design and fly from 60 miles above the moon to 40,000 beyond it in a retrograde orbit.
Crewed Missions to Follow
NASA intends to put the first crew on Artemis-2, followed by the first landing on the moon on Artemis-3, using a SpaceX Starship as the lander (read more about that HERE). A small space station called Gateway will be put in lunar orbit too, serving as a staging point between orbit and the surface.
“We’re doing really good right now,” said Jeremy Graeber, Assistant Launch Director. “So far everything is going very smoothly”.
So far, so good…
Tonight’s weather forecast is 90% favorable for liftoff. NASA has a 2-hour window to launch too, which opens at 1:04am EST.
