NASA’s Artemis 1 moon rocket is no longer on the launch pad.
Artemis Bale 1 – A space launch system A (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion-Pad 39B crew pod took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida Saturday (July 2) at 4:12 a.m. EDT (0812 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC).
The duo arrived at the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in KSC around 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT) and completed a 4-mile flight over NASA’s massive summit. Tracked tanker 2 vehicles In just over 10 hours, agency officials He said in a blog post (Opens in a new tab)†
Related: Explanation of NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission in pictures
Artemis 1 It recently closed rehearsal for “Wet Wear,” a major series of tests and simulations designed to help determine if the car is ready to fly. This success in wet clothes was elusive. The Artemis 1 team first attempted this feat in early April but was thwarted by several technical issues, Including stuck valve† Team members returned the stack to the VAB on April 25 for repair and sent it to the board for another attempt earlier this month.
The latest attempt didn’t go smoothly – a hydrogen leak was detected while refueling – but NASA officials I thought it was good enough To start setting up Artemis 1 for startup.
Artemis 1 sends Orion drone on flight for about a month the moon† The expedition team appears to be looking to take off in late August or early September, but no official target date will be set until SLS and Orion are fully vetted at the VAB.
As the name suggests, Artemis 1 is NASA’s first mission Artemis programwhich aims to establish a sustainable human presence on and around the Moon by the end of 2020. If all goes well with Artemis 1, Artemis 2 will send a crew Orion around the moon in 2024, and Artemis 3 will place astronauts near the moon’s south pole about two years later.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated June 30 at 2:15 PM ET with the new estimated draw start time at 8:00 PM ET. NASA Count four hours (Opens in a new tab) Expected one night due to bad weather. The story was updated again on June 30 at 7:20 PM ET with the last estimated spare time on July 1 at 6:00 PM ET. The latest change was due to “concerns about the condition of the path leading from Launch Pad 39B to VAB,” according to NASA officials. He said via Twitter (Opens in a new tab)† This story was updated for the third time on July 1 at 11:15 AM ET with the new estimated withdrawal start time at 11:15 PM ET. NASA later returned due to the weather, According to NASA officials (Opens in a new tab)† Story was last updated at 4:55PM EST on July 2nd with news of Artemis reaching 1 VAB.
Mike Wall is the author of “Abroad (Opens in a new tab)Book (Great Grand Publishing House, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book on the search for extraterrestrials. Follow him on Twitter Embedded Tweet (Opens in a new tab)† Follow us on Twitter Embedded Tweet (Opens in a new tab) or on Facebook social networking site (Opens in a new tab)†
