Artemis 1 moon rocket ‘ready to go’ for November 14 launch, NASA says
While NASA officials stressed in a media teleconference today (Nov. 3) that the agency’s highly anticipated Artemis 1 lunar mission will be challenging, they said they are confident in the upcoming launch attempt on Nov. 14.
The Artemis 1 mission stack, consisting of the huge Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, is scheduled to roll out again to Launch Pad 39B from NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) on Friday (Nov. 4). The SLS stack has been on the trail three times before, once in March and June for pre-launch tank testing, and again in mid-August for two failed launch attempts. The rocket was then rolled back into the VAB on September 27 to ride out of Hurricane Ianwhere it has since undergone repairs and pre-flight checks.
Despite these setbacks, NASA officials emphasized in today’s media briefing that they stand behind the new mission timeline, which aims for a launch attempt at 12:07 a.m. EST (0507 GMT) on Nov. 14. “If we weren’t confident, we wouldn’t be rolling out. If we weren’t confident, we wouldn’t start counting down when we do. We’re confident moving forward,” said Jim Free, associate administrator of the Directorate of Exploration Systems Development Mission at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC
Related: Watch NASA roll the Artemis 1 moon rocket to the launch pad early Friday
Free added that the Artemis 1 mission was challenging from the start. “I do want to take a moment to reflect on the fact that this is a challenging mission,” Free told reporters. “We’ve seen challenges in getting all of our systems to work together. And that’s why we’re doing a flight test. It’s about going after the things that can’t be modeled. And we learn by taking more risks on this mission before we go.” put crews on it. And those challenges, you know, come with this complex of a vehicle and where we’re flying to and how we get there.”
“The good thing about all this is that our team continues to grow and learn more about the vehicle,” he added.
While SLS has been in the VAB for the past five weeks, NASA engineers have replaced the hardware of the SLS flight termination system, recharged Orion’s batteries and replaced the batteries, including those in some of the the mission’s 10 ridealong cubesats.
“Since returning to the VAB for Hurricane Ian, the team has been hard at work,” said Cliff Lanham, Senior Vehicle Operations Manager of the Exploration Ground Systems Program at KSC. “The work in the VAB went smoothly. We were able to protect the missile against the hurricane and we were able to carry out our inspections and repairs.”
Lanham added that with the preflight work nearing completion, NASA teams at KSC have begun preparations for Friday’s rollout to Launch Pad 39. “We have begun to retract our platforms. We are now pulling actually our last platform in. the high bay under the mobile launcher.”
Space.com asked NASA officials if the previous failed launch attempts and the widespread media scrutiny that followed affected the morale of the many personnel working on the Artemis 1 mission.
“This is a professional group of people whose first loyalty is to the hardware and to doing things right. And when we give you all the discussions like this, I appreciate the questions and the ability to go about things like you just said, the criticism that thrown our way,” Free told Space.com. “We spend taxpayers’ money. We have to be open to criticism and answer questions, but it will never put us in a position to push too hard to launch too soon or make a bad decision.”
Lanham added that the team’s enthusiasm has never waned despite the mission’s previous setbacks. “We’re back in terms of ready to go and excited down here.”
Artemis 1 will send an unmanned Orion on a long journey to lunar orbit and back. It’s NASA’s first mission Artemis program of lunar exploration, which aims to locate humans near the moon’s south pole by 2025 or 2026 and establish a sustainable human presence on and around the moon by the end of the decade.
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