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 By Lucie AUBOURG Cape Canaveral (AFP) Nov 14, 2022
After two failed attempts this summer, NASA was busy Monday completing final preparations for the launch of its new mega Moon rocket, now scheduled for early Wednesday from Florida. The Artemis 1 mission, a test flight without astronauts, represents the first step in the US space agency's plan to build a lasting presence on the Moon, and taking lessons from there to prepare for a future voyage to Mars. Named after the sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, the new space program comes 50 years after humans last set foot on lunar soil. The first launch of the Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful ever designed by NASA, is set for Wednesday at 1:04 am local time (0604 GMT), with a possible launch window of two hours. Countdown has already begun at the storied Kennedy Space Center, where the orange and white behemoth awaits its maiden flight. The takeoff is scheduled less than a week after the passage of Hurricane Nicole, which the rocket endured outside on its launch pad. For now, officials are evaluating the risk associated with hurricane damage to a thin strip of caulk-like material called RTV, which encircles the Orion crew capsule atop the rocket, and makes it more aerodynamic. Teams are looking at whether the RTV could shake loose during launch and pose problems. Two fallback dates are possible if needed, on November 19 and 25. But Mike Sarafin, in charge of the Artemis 1 mission, was optimistic Sunday evening. "I feel good headed into this attempt," he said. - Far side of Moon - The weather promises to be mild, with a 90 percent chance of favorable conditions during the launch window. At the end of September, the rocket had to be wheeled back to its assembly building to be sheltered from another hurricane, Ian, postponing the mission by several weeks. Before these weather setbacks, two launch attempts had to be canceled for technical reasons. The first failure was related to a faulty sensor, and the second to a fuel leak when filling the rocket's tanks. It runs on ultra-cold, ultra-volatile liquid oxygen and hydrogen. NASA has since replaced a seal and modified its procedures to avoid thermal shock as much as possible, and succeeded in a tank filling test in late September. These filling operations are now due to begin Tuesday afternoon, under the orders of Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA's first female launch director. About 100,000 people are expected on the coast to watch the launch, with the rocket promising to light up the night sky. The Orion capsule will be lifted by two boosters and four powerful engines under the core stage, which will detach after only a few minutes. After a final push from the upper stage, the capsule will be well on its way, taking several days to reach its destination. Rather than landing on the Moon, it will assume a distant orbit, venturing 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) beyond Earth's natural satellite -- further than any other habitable spacecraft so far. Finally, Orion will embark on the return leg of its journey. When passing through the atmosphere, the capsule's heat shield will need to withstand a temperature half as hot as the Sun's surface. If takeoff happens Wednesday, the mission would last 25 and a half days in all, with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on December 11. NASA is banking on a successful mission after developing the SLS rocket for more than a decade. It will have invested more than $90 billion in its new lunar program by the end of 2025, according to a public audit. Artemis 2 will be almost a replay of the first mission, albeit with astronauts, in 2024. Boots on the ground should happen during Artemis 3, no sooner than 2025, with the crew set to include the first woman and first person of color on the Moon. NASA then wants to launch around one mission per year and build a lunar space station called Gateway. There, humanity must learn to live in deep space and develop the technologies necessary for a round trip to Mars, perhaps in the late 2030s.
An overview of NASA's Artemis 1 mission to the Moon The meticulously choreographed uncrewed flight should yield spectacular images as well as valuable scientific data. - Blastoff - The giant Space Launch System rocket will make its maiden flight from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its four RS-25 engines, with two white boosters on either side, will produce 8.8 million pounds (39 meganewtons) of thrust -- 15 percent more than the Apollo program's Saturn V rocket. After two minutes, the thrusters will fall back into the Atlantic Ocean. After eight minutes, the core stage, orange in color, will fall away in turn, leaving the Orion crew capsule attached to the interim cryogenic propulsion stage. This stage will circle the Earth once, put Orion on course for the Moon, and drop away around 90 minutes after takeoff. - Trajectory - All that remains is Orion, which will carry astronauts in the future and is powered by a service module built by the European Space Agency. It will take several days to reach the Moon, flying around 60 miles (100 kilometers) from it at its closest approach. "It's going to be spectacular. We'll be holding our breath," said mission flight director Rick LaBrode. The capsule will fire its engines to get to a distant retrograde orbit (DRO) 40,000 miles beyond the Moon, a distance record for a spacecraft rated to carry humans. "Distant" relates to high altitude, while "retrograde" refers to the fact Orion will go around the Moon in the opposite direction to the Moon's orbit around the Earth. DRO is a stable orbit because objects are balanced between the gravitational pulls of two large masses. After passing by the Moon to take advantage of its gravitational assistance, Orion will begin the return journey. - Journey home - The mission's primary objective is to test the capsule's heat shield, the largest ever built, 16 feet (five meters) in diameter. On its return through the Earth's atmosphere, it will have to withstand a speed of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). Slowed by a series of parachutes until it is traveling at less than 20 miles per hour, Orion will splash down off the coast of San Diego in the Pacific. Divers will attach cables to tow it in a few hours to a US Navy ship. - The crew - The capsule will carry a mannequin called Moonikin Campos, named after a legendary NASA engineer who saved Apollo 13, in the commander's seat, wearing the agency's brand new uniform. Campos will be equipped with sensors to record acceleration and vibrations, and will also be accompanied by two other dummies: Helga and Zohar, who are made of materials designed to mimic bones and organs. One will wear a radiation vest while the other won't, to test the impacts of the radiation in deep space. - What will we see? - Several on-board cameras will make it possible to follow the entire journey from multiple angles, including from the point of view of a passenger in the capsule. Cameras at the end of the solar panels will take selfies of the craft with the Moon and Earth in the background. - CubeSats - Life will imitate art with a technology demonstration called Callisto, inspired by the Starship Enterprise's talking computer. It is an improved version of Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, which will be requested from the control center to adjust the light in the capsule, or to read flight data. The idea is to make life easier for astronauts in the future. In addition, a payload of 10 CubeSats, shoebox-sized microsatellites, will be deployed by the rocket's upper stage. They have numerous goals: studying an asteroid, examining the effect of radiation on living organisms, searching for water on the Moon. These projects, carried out independently by international companies or researchers, take advantage of the rare opportunity of a launch into deep space.
NASA laser reflector for ESA satnav on Lunar Pathfinder Paris (ESA) Nov 11, 2022 NASA has delivered a retroreflector array to ESA that will allow the Lunar Pathfinder mission to be pinpointed by laser ranging stations back on Earth as it orbits the Moon. Such centimetre level laser measurements will serve as an independent check on the spacecraft as it fixes its position using Galleo and GPS signals from an unprecedented 400 000 km away from Earth - proving the concept of lunar satnav while also relaying telecommunications ahead of ESA's dedicated Moonlight initiative. Safegua ... read more
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