/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24643387/DSC04630_processed.jpg)
NASA’s Artemis 1 moon rocket is no longer on the launch pad.
Artemis stack 1 – A space launch system A rocket (SLS) topped by the Orion crew capsule – Pad 39B departed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida at 4:12 a.m. EDT (0812 GMT) on Saturday (July 2).
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 (6.4 km) 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: NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission explained in pictures
Artemis 1 It recently concluded its “wet rehearsal,” an important series of tests and simulations designed to help determine how ready the car is to fly. This was the success of painstakingly wearing wet clothes; The Artemis 1 team first attempted this feat in early April but was thwarted by several technical issues, Including stuck valve. Team members ended up returning the stack to the VAB for repairs on April 25, then sent it to the board for another attempt earlier this month.
The latest attempt didn’t go quite smoothly — a hydrogen leak was detected during refueling operations — but NASA officials I considered it good enough To start preparing Artemis 1 for boot.
Artemis will send 1 unmanned Orion on a journey of about a month the moon. The mission team appears to be looking to late August or early September for takeoff, but no official target date will be set until the SLS and Orion are fully vetted at the VAB.
As its 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 at 2:15PM ET on June 30th with the new estimated pullback starting time at 8PM ET. NASA Move backtrack forward by four hours (Opens in a new tab) Due to bad weather expected overnight. The story was updated again at 7:20PM ET on June 30 with the last estimated pullback time at 6PM ET on July 1. The latest change was due to “concern about the condition of the crawler track leading from Launch Pad 39B to VAB,” NASA officials He said via Twitter (Opens in a new tab). This story was updated for the third time at 11:15AM ET on July 1 with the new estimated pullback start time at 11PM ET. NASA moved backtracking later due to weather, According to NASA officials (Opens in a new tab). The story was last updated at 4:55 PM EST on July 2 with news that Artemis 1 has reached 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 Tweet embed (Opens in a new tab). Follow us on Twitter Tweet embed (Opens in a new tab) or on Facebook (Opens in a new tab).
“Amateur organizer. Wannabe beer evangelist. General web fan. Certified internet ninja. Avid reader.”
More Stories
Live updates from the Starlink Falcon 9 launch at the Cape
The largest black hole in the Milky Way Galaxy lurks near Earth
The cosmic collision that made Pluto's heart