The takeoff, Wednesday, of the SLS rocket carrying an Orion vessel, is the first step towards a return of astronauts to the moon, scheduled as soon as possible for 2025.
By Pierre Barthélémy
Spatial history books will remember that, Wednesday, November 16, 2022, half a century after closing the Apollo adventure, the United States left for the moon with the first mission of their Artemis program. At 7:48 a.m. Paris time, flanked by its two powder boosters, the massive SLS rocket (Space Launch System) snatched from the 39b shooting of the Kennedy space center in Cap Canaveral (Florida), taking an Orion vessel … Empty of passengers.
This Artemis -1 mission is indeed considered to be a launcher validation test – of which it is inaugural flight – but also of Orion, especially for the capacity of its thermal shield to resist the return to the atmosphere terrestrial at a staggering speed of 40,000 km/h. No question therefore, for obvious security reasons, to place humans at the top of the rocket on the occasion of this general rehearsal. This was carried out in several times because, before the flight of November 16, two attempts took place on August 29 and then on September 3. Each time the countdown was interrupted due to technical problems, in particular leaks when filling the tanks. NASA reprogrammed the takeoff for September 27 but had to give it up because of the threat that Hurricane Ian had to weigh on Florida. As a precaution, the SLS was sheltered in its assembly building. Once back on the pitch, the rocket had to face the winds of the tropical storm Nicole before, finally, to be able to leave.
with humans in 2024
This Wednesday, an hour and a half after takeoff, Orion left the terrestrial orbit and was “injected” on its trajectory towards the moon. On November 25, the capsule will be placed in orbit around the natural satellite of the earth. A very eccentric and very large orbit since Orion will approach less than 100 kilometers from the lunar surface then will move away from it up to 64,000 kilometers, which will lead it further into space than any other habitable vessel n ‘never went.
After turning around the moon, Orion will start his return journey and will be up under parachutes in the Pacific Ocean, off California, where he will be recovered by the US Navy. It will be December 11, after a twenty-five day odyssey, the longest trip that a space capsule designed for humans will have made, outside the terrestrial orbit. Throughout this journey of more than 2 million kilometers, NASA teams will test the systems of the vessel.
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