This is the first mission towards the return of Man to the Moon and finally the conquest of Mars. Artemis I is scheduled to take off on Monday, without a crew. The mission is named after the American program to return to the Moon, Artemis, and aims to send the first woman and the first person of color to the lunar surface in the following.
The Artemis 1 mission is about disassembling NASA’s new giant rocket, dubbed the SLS, and the Orion capsule on top of it, to ensure they can safely transport astronauts in the future. Orion will go into orbit around the Moon before returning to Earth.
“A new great step towards space exploration”
The Orion spacecraft is scheduled to lift off Monday, weather permitting, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States, on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The trip lasts 42 days, 3 hours and 20 minutes, with a return scheduled for October 10.
For Jean-Loup Chrétien, a CNES astronaut and the first Frenchman in space, the Artemis mission “is a new big step towards space exploration”.
“We are reopening the great doors of space,” he rejoices at the BFMTV microphone.
lunar orbit
After two minutes of flight, the boosters will drop back into the Atlantic Ocean. After eight minutes, the main stage, colored orange, will separate in turn. Only the Orion spacecraft will remain, whose solar panels will later be deployed, attached to the rocket’s upper stage (ICPS). After going around the Earth, the latter will provide the final push that will put Orion on the path of the Moon, approximately 1h30 after liftoff, before being released as well.
The ship will then consist solely of the capsule where the astronauts will be in the future, powered by a service module built by the European Space Agency (ESA). It will take several days to reach the Moon, which it will approach when it reaches only 100 km. “It’s going to be spectacular, we’ll be holding our breath,” said mission flight director Rick LaBrode.
The capsule will then be placed into a distant orbit, where it will complete one and a half revolutions of the Moon in just over two weeks. It will go up to 64,000 km behind the Moon, a record for a habitable capsule. Then, after passing by the Moon again to take advantage of its gravitational assistance, it will start its return trip.
Test the capsule’s heat shield.
Mission objective number 1 is to test the capsule’s heat shield, the largest ever built: 5 meters in diameter. When it returns to the Earth’s atmosphere, it will have to withstand a speed of 40,000 km/h and a temperature of 2,800°C.
The spacecraft will be slowed to 480 km/h by the atmosphere, then to 32 km/h by a series of parachutes, until it lands in front of the Californian city of San Diego. Divers will attach cables to it to be towed within a few hours into a US Navy ship.
Inside the capsule, the passenger will be a mannequin, nicknamed Moonikin Campos, sitting in the commander’s seat and dressed in NASA’s new suit. He will record the acceleration and vibrations experienced.
Also on board: two busts of women, named Helga and Zohar, and made of materials that mimic bones or even human organs. One will be wearing a radiation jacket, the other will not. The sensors will make it possible to assess the levels of radiation received, particularly in deep space, where they are much more important.
Source: BFM TV
