Ready for launch with eyes on the sky. Those responsible for the first manned mission to the Moon in more than half a century explained this Monday that the rocket, the ship, the launch platform and the rest of the components of this NASA mission are in perfect condition and ready for takeoff. What worries them most at this moment is time, they say. And even this one seems to be cooperating, since for now there is an 80% probability that the conditions are suitable for takeoff.
“It is an exciting moment for our team, for this country and for the entire world,” said engineer Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, launch director, during a press conference this Monday at the Kennedy Space Center.
The countdown to launch began at 4:44 in the afternoon local time, six hours more in mainland Spain. If there are no incidents, takeoff is scheduled for 6:24 p.m. on Wednesday.
Before that, the countdown includes powering on and beginning to communicate first with the Orion spacecraft, which will take the four crew members on its 10-day trip around the Moon without landing; then the main stage of the rocket, and finally the upper stage. The key moment, on the morning of launch day, will be the start of fuel filling. If everything goes well, about six hours later everything will be ready so that the four Artemis 2 astronauts can board the ship and prepare for takeoff.
Expectation is growing here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the place from which the legendary Apollo missions were launched to the surface of the Moon more than half a century ago, and from where they now hope to match that feat. The SLS rocket, the most powerful ever built by the United States space agency, is now ready on the launch pad. And America knows the world is watching.
NASA’s number three, has highlighted the political importance of the launch. “Everything still looks very good to launch,” he said during the press conference; in which he highlighted that this mission would not be possible without collaboration with partners in the United States, Europe among them. “The free countries of the world are doing something that no country can do alone,” he highlighted.
Suddenly, a growing roar and then a tremor that shook some of the lights in the press room interrupted Kshatriya. It was the takeoff of a Falcon 9 rocket from the SpaceX company that was just taking off loaded with a group of Starlink satellites. These releases occur every few days. “This is one of the wonderful things about this country,” Kshatriya joked.
If all goes well, on Wednesday the huge SLS shuttle will fire up its rockets to take the four into space: Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Specialist Christina Koch and Specialist Jeremy Hansen. Their 10-day mission will take them on a round trip to the Moon, without landing, but with a single pass along the far side of the satellite. Koch will be the first woman in history to make this trip, Glover the first black, and Hansen, a Canadian, the first astronaut from outside the United States to achieve it.
The Artemis 2 is a test flight to analyze the behavior of essential systems for future landings on the Moon, where NASA wants to establish a permanently inhabited colony at the beginning of the next decade. Among them is the oxygen system for breathing, temperature control, air purification and the engines necessary to give the ship the last push to leave Earth’s orbit and head towards the satellite. For the first time, the United States has turned to Europe to provide some of these systems through the so-called European Service Module, whose construction has been coordinated by the European Space Agency with the multinational Airbus as main contractor.
The four astronauts of Artemis 2 will be the first to contemplate areas of the far side of the Moon that have never before been seen by human eyes. Each of them will take images and videos during the hours in which the spacecraft will fly over the lunar surface at a distance of about 7,000 kilometers. The satellite will then have a size similar to that held at arm’s length. Communication with Earth will be interrupted for about 40 minutes until the ship emerges again on the other side of the satellite. It is very likely that the crew will be able to contemplate the departure of the Earth through the lunar horizon, the so-called .
The launch window for Artemis 2 opens on Wednesday afternoon, local time – after midnight on Thursday in mainland Spain – and runs until April 6. There is a daily release possibility. If the rocket manages to take off between Wednesday and Saturday, the four astronauts of the Artemis 2 will become the humans who have traveled the furthest in space in history, surpassing the crew of the accident: more than 400,000 kilometers away from Earth.
