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Artemis II Mission
It’s happening! NASA have announced a date for they hope Artemis II will be ready to launch…6th February!
On Saturday 17th January the SLS rocket (which stands for Space Launch System) with the Orion spacecraft located at the top, was slowly moved to the launch pad. The 4 mile journey from the vehicle assembly building to the launchpad at Kennedy Space Centre took just under 12 hours! The NASA crawler transporter which moved the rocket into place had to travel at 1 mile an hour!
The enormous rocket is taller than Big Ben and is 98 meres tall. The SLS Rocket is used to launch the Orion capsule and the Upper Stage of the system, out of Earth’s atmosphere.
The Core Stage will contain 2 million litres of oxygen and 750 million litres of hydrogen, frozen so the gases become liquid. When mixed together and then ignited a chemical reaction takes place and steam is forced out of the engine’s nozzles a 10,000 miles per hour!
There are also two Solid Rocket Boosters. These provide 75% of the power needed to get the rocket off the ground. Just one of these Solid Rocket Boosters has the same amount of power as 14 jumbo jets!
Clockwise from left; Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen and Reid Wiseman.
SLS rocket on the launchpad
Below you can see the flight path the astronauts will take. Once launched out of Earth’s atmosphere they will slingshot around the Earth, before heading off to the Moon. They will fly round the Moon and then make the journey back to Earth, arriving back 10 days later.
They will be testing the Orion Capsule’s life support systems, as well as the navigation and communication systems to ensure everything works correctly once they are in deep space.
Many of these tests will happen at the beginning of the mission while the astronauts are close to home, just in case anything goes wrong.
The diagram also shows how the different parts of the spacecraft are used and how most of it will drop away when finished with.
The Core Stage and the Solid Rocket Boosters for example drop off back to Earth almost straight away once the spacecraft is launched.
The only part that will be used for the whole mission is the Orion Capsule, which is where the astronauts will be for the whole journey.
There are lots of tests and run throughs they will have to go through before the launch date can be 100% confirmed but it is a massive step in the right direction! A ‘wet dress rehearsal’ is planned to take place on the 2nd February. This is an almost complete rehearsal of the launch. This has to go well as if there are any problems at all the SLS rocket might have to be slowly moved back to the vehicle assembly building so any issues can be resolved. This would significantly delay the launch.
The astronauts getting ready to fly round the Moon are American’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Jeremy Hansen.
Reid Wiseman is the commander, Victor Glover is the pilot and Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are mission specialists.
Find out about more about the mission...
Photos and illustrations in this blog post are Whizzbots, Shutterstock and Public Domain Images.