For the first time in more than 53 years, NASA is preparing to send humans beyond low-Earth orbit. As soon as Wednesday evening, four astronauts will embark on an a more than nine-day mission with the goal of flying around the Moon and back.
The flight is called Artemis 2, and it’s the first crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft, a key stepping stone for grand plans of a Moon Base and eventually human exploration on Mars. NASA astronaut and mission commander Reid Wiseman leads the quartet, which includes fellow NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
“The vehicle is ready, the system is ready, the crew is ready, and behind this flight stands a campaign: landings, a lunar base, a nuclear propulsion into deep space. That begins, not ends, with what happens on Wednesday,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya. The more than 49-hour long countdown officially began ticking down at 4:44 PM EDT on Monday. Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson would give her approval to proceed into feuling the 322-foot tall Space Launch System rocket at 7:34 AM on Wednesday.
The 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 20 percent chance for a weather violation during Wednesday’s launch window. On Tuesday, during a news briefing, Launch Weather Officer Mark Burger said there was a low risk for lightning, but noted that they were watching for the potential for interference from cumulus clouds and strong ground winds: “The optimistic side of me says that means 80 percent chance of ‘go’ here. Again, isolated showers wandering around, but again, a lot of real estate between those showers, in all likelihood,’’ Burger said, ‘’We should be able to find some clear air to launch Artemis 2.’’
If all goes smoothly with the multi-hour fueling process, the four crew members will begin donning their flight suits, originally called Orion Crew Survival System suits, around 5.5 hours before liftoff. After departing from the suit-up room, they will spend a few final minutes. Once they arrive at Launch Complex 39B, a small team called the closeout crew will help them into their Orion Spacecraft, which the astronauts named “integrity.” On board is all they need and more to survive and work on board the spaceship that they’ll call home for more than a week. After the crew is safely on board, the side hatches to the rew module and the launch abort system will be closed and sealed sequentially.
The closeout crew, which includes one of the backup astronauts for this mission, will then finish stowing their tools and clear the pad less than an hour before flight. After achieving liftoff, the twin five-segment solid rocket boosters will separate from the rocket’s core stage a little more than two minutes into flight. The SLS rocket’s upper stage called the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage will separate from the core stage in the eighth minute of the mission. 20 minutes post-liftoff, the four 23 foot long solar arrays on the European Service Module, located beneath the crew module, will deploy and begin to provide power to Orion’s four main batteries.
