NASA’s Artemis 1 moon rocket is no longer on the launch pad.
Artemis 1 stack – a Space launch system (SLS) rocket clad in the Orion crew capsule – Pad 39B lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida at 4:12 a.m. EDT (0812 GMT) Saturday (July 2).
The duo arrived at KSC’s cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) around 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT), completing a 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) trek over NASA’s giant summit. crawler-carrier 2 vehicles A little after 10 hours, agency officials says the blog post (opens in new tab).
Related: NASA’s Artemis 1 mission explained in photos
Artemis 1 It recently completed a “wet dress exercise,” an important series of tests and simulations designed to help determine the vehicle’s flight readiness. This wetsuit success was hard won; The Artemis 1 team first attempted the stage in early April, but ran into a series of technical issues, including a stuck valve. Team members rolled the stack back to VAB for repairs on April 25, then sent it to the pad for another attempt earlier this month.
The latest attempt didn’t go perfectly — a hydrogen leak was discovered during refueling operations — but NASA officials he thought it was good enough Begin preparing Artemis 1 for flight.
Artemis 1 will send the unmanned Orion on a journey that will last about a month month. The mission team is probably aiming for a late August or early September launch, but an official target date won’t be set until SLS and Orion are fully inspected at the VAB.
As the name suggests, Artemis 1 is NASA’s first mission Artemis programIt aims to establish a sustainable human presence on and around the Moon by the end of the 2020s. If all goes well with Artemis 1, Artemis 2 will send a crew Orion around the moon in 2024, and Artemis 3 will land astronauts near the moon’s south pole in about two years.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 2:15 p.m. EDT on June 30 with a new estimated withdrawal time of 8 p.m. EDT. NASA advanced the retreat by four hours (opens in new tab) due to bad weather expected at night. The story was updated again on June 30 at 7:20 PM EDT, and the latest estimated withdrawal time was July 1 at 6:00 PM EDT. The last change was due to “concern regarding the condition of the crawlway from Launch Pad 39B”. to VAB,” NASA officials He said through Twitter (opens in new tab). This story was updated a third time on July 1 at 11:15 a.m. EDT with a new estimated withdrawal start time of 11:00 p.m. EDT. NASA postponed the retreat due to weather conditions, According to NASA officials (opens in new tab). The story was last updated on July 2 at 4:55 PM EDT with news of Artemis 1’s arrival at VAB.
Mike Wall is the author of “there (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter. @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
