Nasa set to launch crew to moon for first time in 50 years
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NASA astronauts are poised to lift off on Wednesday on a 10-day journey that will slingshot them around the moon, marking humanity’s return to the lunar vicinity for the first time in more than half a century.
The crew’s Lockheed Martin-built Orion capsule, perched atop the Boeing-made Space Launch System rocket, is set to launch at 6.24 pm local time from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
About an hour before the scheduled launch, the space agency said it was troubleshooting a battery issue with the rocket, though it didn’t halt its countdown.
The mission is a crucial, in-space dress rehearsal for the long-delayed SLS rocket and Orion capsule, and marks the biggest milestone yet in Nasa’s multi-year Artemis campaign to land humans on the moon as soon as 2028.
If the mission launches on schedule, the four-person crew will travel farther in space than anyone in history.
At around 2 pm, the astronauts in bright orange suits walked out of crew quarters, waving to cheering spectators and blowing kisses to their families, before piling into an “astrovan” — the designated vehicle to bring astronauts to and from the launch pad — branded with an Artemis II logo.
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President Donald Trump’s Nasa administrator, Jared Isaacman, and former astronaut and US Senator Mark Kelly attended the send-off.
Earlier, European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher joined other Nasa officials, lawmakers and industry executives walking the press site and conducting interviews. TV outlets set up white tents on the lawn outside to capture the giant SLS rocket standing a few kilometres away.
The Artemis voyages will attempt to repeat and then leapfrog feats achieved during the historic Apollo program that landed Neil Armstrong and 11 other men on the lunar surface in the 1960s and 1970s.
Watch parties are planned across the country, including in major space hubs like Seattle, Houston and Huntsville, Alabama, where the core stage of the SLS is produced.
With Artemis — named after the twin goddess of Apollo — Nasa aims to stay on the moon long-term. Isaacman has laid out a decade-long US$30-billion plan to set up a base on the moon where astronauts can live and work.
Isaacman has also sped through a significant makeover of the overall mission, including adding a test mission in 2027 that will send a crew to dock with one of the lunar landers being built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
“America will never again give up the moon,” Isaacman said when he unveiled the moon base plans.
The crew will spend roughly four days travelling to the lunar vicinity, where they will swing behind the moon’s far side — a vantage that is never seen from Earth. They are slated to perform a flyby of the lunar surface on April 6.
If the mission unfolds as planned, their trajectory will take them within only roughly 6,618 km of the moon during their closest approach, with the orb appearing about the size of a basketball in an outstretched hand in the capsule window.
Commanding Wednesday’s Artemis II mission is Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman, a 27-year Navy veteran and former head of the agency’s astronaut office.
Flying with him are Nasa astronauts Victor Glover, the mission’s pilot, and Christina Koch, a mission specialist who conducted the first all-female spacewalk. They are joined by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who will be flying to space for the first time on this trip.
Roughly three and a half hours after launch, Glover will steer Orion up close to a piece of the SLS rocket while in orbit, demonstrating the ability to closely approach another spacecraft. The same maneuvering will potentially be used to dock Orion with future lunar landers that will take astronauts down to the surface of the moon.
On the second day of the flight, the Orion spacecraft will ignite its main engine, sending the crew en route to the moon.
The US is racing to get back to the moon before China sends its own astronauts there for the first time, a goal Beijing has set for before the end of the decade.
A number of US China hawks, including US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, have cast Artemis as a race for a strategic foothold in space, sometimes referred to as the “ultimate high ground” for war.
China has yet to send people to the lunar surface but has notched several achievements, including the only landings on the moon’s far side. The nation is also leading a project to build an international research station near the lunar south pole.
The Artemis II mission is notable for its numerous “firsts.” Koch will be the first woman to fly near the moon, while Glover will be the first Black astronaut to do the same. Hansen will also become the first Canadian to fly to the moon.
The mission marks just the second flight of the SLS rocket, which has fallen many years behind schedule. The rocket and Orion have suffered various schedule delays and cost overruns, which have pushed back the entire Artemis programme.
US Senator Kelly, of Arizona, embraced Isaacman’s new plans to build a moon base, but he also shared a dose of skepticism about Nasa’s ability to land on the lunar surface in 2028.
“It’s going to be tough,” Kelly told reporters before crew members boarded the capsule. “I don’t think it’s out of the question.”
After the Nasa crew fly by the moon, gravity will pull them back to Earth.
On the tenth day of the mission, their capsule will reenter the planet’s atmosphere and they will descend under parachutes and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
A recovery ship and a team of divers with Nasa and the US Navy will meet up with the capsule to pull the crew out of the water. BLOOMBERG
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