NASA will make the first lunar flight with astronauts in more than half a century and has begun preparing the giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the mission. Despite the historical symbolism, the crew will not orbit the Moon or land on its surface at this stage. At first, it will be a round trip and attempts will begin in February.
At 98 meters high and weighing more than 5 million kilos, the SLS was taken this Saturday (17) to the launch platform.
In the cold of the morning, a crowd of space center employees and their families gathered to watch the rocket move — a moment awaited for years and successively postponed.
They gathered in front of the building erected in the 1960s to house the Saturn V rockets (which took 24 astronauts to the Moon during the Apollo program). Leading the celebration were NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, and the four astronauts scheduled for the mission.
The SLS and the Orion manned capsule, installed on top, were transported by a huge vehicle used in the Apollo and space shuttle eras, now modernized to support the new rocket’s extra weight.
So far, SLS has carried out just one launch: in November 2022, when it sent an unmanned Orion into lunar orbit.
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Problems identified in the capsule during this test flight — including damage to the heat shield — required a long series of analyzes and new tests, which pushed the first manned mission of the Artemis program to this year.
NASA hopes to complete a fueling test of the SLS on the launch pad itself in early February before hammering out a liftoff date. The agency will only have a five-day window, in the first fortnight of the month; If the launch does not occur within this period, the attempt will be postponed until March.
The forecast is that astronauts will only orbit and land on the Moon on the third flight of the Artemis series, in a few years.
The current mission, lasting 10 days, will be commanded by Reid Wiseman and piloted by Victor Glover. Christina Koch, also a veteran NASA astronaut, will complete the North American team. The group will be accompanied by Canadian Jeremy Hansen, a former fighter pilot who is making his debut in space flights.
They will be the first humans to travel to the Moon since Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt ended the lunar landing program in 1972. In total, 12 astronauts have walked the lunar surface, the first being Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969.
