NASA’s massive next-generation space rocket was set for its long-awaited debut launch on Monday. The launch will be an uncrewed, six-week test flight around the moon and back, marking the first mission of the space agency’s Artemis program, successor to Apollo moon programme.
The 32-story-tall, two-stage Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion crew capsule were due for blast-off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, during a two-hour launch window opening at 8:33 a.m. EDT (1233 GMT), according to Reuters.
This debut voyage of SLS Orion, called Artemis 1, is aimed at testing the capacity of the vehicle and pushing its design limits, before NASA certifies it to carry astronauts.
Since the Saturn V which launched astronauts to the moon in the Apollo program of the 1960s and ’70s, the SLS represents the biggest new vertical launch system the U.S. space agency has built and is billed as the most powerful, complex rocket in the world.
NASA has set Sept. 2 and Sept. 5 as backup launch dates in case something goes wrong.
Although no humans will be aboard, Orion will be carrying a simulated crew of three – one male and two female mannequins. They will be fitted with sensors to assess radiation levels and other stresses that real-life astronauts experience in space.
A main objective of the test flight is to test the durability of Orion’s heat shield during re-entry as it enters Earth’s atmosphere at 24,500 miles (39,429 km) per hour, or 32 times the speed of sound, on its return from lunar orbit. This is much faster than re-entries of astronaut capsules returning from low-Earth orbit.
“That’s our highest priority that we have to accomplish,” lead flight director Rick LaBrode said of demonstrating the heat shield’s ability to withstand re-entry friction, expected to raise temperatures outside the capsule to nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 Celsius). “That’s what’s going to keep the capsule together and save the astronauts.”
