Image: NASA.
NASA announced yesterday that engineers and technicians at Kennedy Space Center, Florida have completed final testing and verification of the Artemis I lunar rocket. The new launch date is therefore set for today Tuesday August 16, 21 hours EDT (i.e. Wednesday, August 17 at 3 a.m. French time), before the scheduled launch on August 29.
Objective return to the Moon
Artemis I is the first phase of the Artemis mission, during which the Space Launch System (SLS) will launch the Orion spacecraft into Earth orbit where it will travel 40,000 miles beyond the Moon, during a mission of four to six weeks.
Through this unmanned test flight, NASA hopes to learn more about its deep space exploration systems to send astronauts to the Moon and Mars. The flight will test the performance of the SLS rocket and collect technical data throughout the mission, according to NASA. Another crucial element of the flight will be to test the performance of the heat shield as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Artemis mission has three phases, culminating in the final phase which will land astronauts on the Moon, including the first woman and the first person of color.
Follow the deployment live
NASA says teams are currently working to prepare the integrated stack, the SLS rocket with the Orion capsule attached, for deployment. You can watch the Artemis I stack roll to Launch Pad 39B through a live stream of the deployment, which begins tonight at 9 p.m. PT on the NASA Kennedy YouTube channel.
Source: ZDNet.com