Read about the NASA moon return. Nasa is once again trying to send its mega-rocket to the Moon.
Nasa will try to launch its new mega-rocket to the Moon on Saturday, thanks to encouraging weather forecasts and the resolution of technical problems that caused a postponement of the launch at the beginning of the week. In the event of a new impediment, the take-off could possibly be rescheduled for Monday or Tuesday.
Second try. After a first failed attempt at the beginning of the week, Nasa will try again, Saturday, September 3, to launch its mega-rocket to the Moon, for a test mission that must launch its new flagship program, Artemis, fifty years after the last Apollo flight.
Tens of thousands of spectators hope that their wait will be rewarded with an impressive spectacle: the orange and white SLS rocket, which will be the first flight from launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is the most powerful in the world.
NASA moon return
Take-off is scheduled for 14:17 local time (18:17 GMT), and remains possible over the next two hours if necessary.
The weather conditions are favorable at 60% at the beginning of this shooting window, then gradually improve to 80%.
"Our team is ready, they are better at every attempt," said Jeremy Parsons, head of ground equipment at the space center. If the weather and equipment conditions are met, "it is clear that we will take off".
In the event of another impediment on Saturday, the take-off could possibly be rescheduled for Monday or Tuesday. Then it will be necessary to wait until September 19 at the earliest, due to the positions of the Earth and the Moon.
The purpose of this unmanned mission, named Artemis 1, is to verify that the Orion capsule, at the top of the rocket, is safe to transport astronauts in the future.
NASA moon return spacecraft
Thanks to this new spacecraft, the US space agency intends to reconnect with distant human exploration, the Moon being 1,000 times more distant than the International Space Station.
Above all, Nasa intends this time to establish a sustainable human presence there, in order to make it a springboard for a trip to Mars.
In the middle of an extended weekend in the United States, up to 400,000 people are expected to admire the takeoff, especially from the surrounding beaches.
A bunch of astronauts also made the trip, including the Frenchman Thomas Pesquet.
The filling of the rocket's tanks with its cryogenic fuel - about three million liters of liquid hydrogen and oxygen - is scheduled to begin in the early morning.
On Monday, a leak had been observed at this stage, before an engine cooling problem completed canceling the launch. Nasa has since been working to solve these problems.
If successful, two minutes after takeoff, the booster thrusters will fall back into the Atlantic. After eight minutes, the main floor will come off in turn. Then, after about 1:30 a.m., a final push from the upper stage will put the capsule on the path to the Moon, which it will take several days to reach.
NASA moon return trip
The trip should last about six weeks in total. Orion will venture up to 64,000 km behind the Moon, which is further than any other habitable spacecraft so far.
The main objective of Artemis 1 is to test the capsule's heat shield, the largest ever built. When it returns to the Earth's atmosphere, it will have to withstand a speed of 40,000 km/h and a temperature half as hot as that of the Sun's surface.
In total, the ship must travel some 2.1 million kilometers until it lands in the Pacific Ocean.
The complete success of the mission would be a relief for Nasa, which originally expected a first launch in 2017 for SLS, and will have invested more than $ 90 billion in its new lunar program by the end of 2025, according to a public audit.
The name Artemis was chosen after a female figure, the twin sister of the Greek god Apollo - echoing the Apollo program, which sent only white men to the lunar surface, between 1969 and 1972.
NASA moon return details
This time, NASA wants to allow the first person of color and the first woman to walk on the Moon.
As if to accentuate the symbol, it is the first female launch director at NASA, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, who will give the final "go" for liftoff on Saturday.
After this first mission, Artemis 2 will carry astronauts to the Moon in 2024, without landing there. An honor reserved for the crew of Artemis 3, in 2025 at the earliest. Nasa then wants to launch about one mission a year.
It will then be a question of building a space station in lunar orbit, called Gateway, and a base on the surface of the Moon.
There, Nasa wants to test the technologies necessary to send the first humans to Mars: new suits, a vehicle to move around, possible use of lunar water...
According to NASA boss Bill Nelson, a round trip to the red planet aboard Orion, which would last several years, could be attempted towards the end of the 2030 decade.
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