FLORIDA: NASA’s enormous new moon rocket took off from Florida on Wednesday morning for the first time.
It is an important step to send astronauts back to the moon’s surface for the first time since the Apollo programme was terminated 50 years ago.
NASA finally launched Artemis 1
In the late afternoon, the 32-story Space Launch System (SLS) rocket blasted off the Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad in Cape Canaveral to launch its Orion capsule on a three-week test flight around the moon and back (unmanned).
Due to technical difficulties, consecutive hurricanes, and two trips to the launch pad with the spacecraft, the launch was the US Space Agency’s third attempt.
The SLS rocket and the Orion capsule take off together for the first time on the rocket Artemis. Under a contract with NASA, it is built by Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp.
Additionally, it represents a significant shift in NASA’s post-Apollo human spaceflight program’s focus from low-Earth orbit with space shuttles and the International Space Station for decades.
Additionally, it represents a significant shift in NASA’s post-Apollo human spaceflight program’s focus from low-Earth orbit with space shuttles to the International Space Station for decades. Artemis plans to send astronauts to the moon’s surface as early as 2025.
The only space missions to date to successfully land people on the moon’s surface were the six Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972, during which twelve men performed moonwalks. However, Apollo, a product of the US-Soviet space rivalry during the Cold War, was less based on science than Artemis.
The new moon programme is collaborating with international space agencies, private corporations like Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and governments from Europe, Canada, and Japan to build a permanent lunar base that will act as a launch pad for even more ambitious human spaceflight missions.
The four main R-25 engines of the rocket and its twin solid rocket boosters roared to life at the height of the Artemis I countdown, generating 8.8 million pounds of thrust that propelled the spacecraft into the night sky over Florida’s central Atlantic space coast.
As a crowd of onlookers applauded and screamed in delight, the noise of the rockets shook the Kennedy Space Center. The Rockets’ boom shook the Kennedy Space Center as a crowd of onlookers shouted and yelled in ecstasy.
The rocket’s upper stage is intended to send Orion out of Earth orbit approximately 90 minutes after liftoff. Orion will then travel for 25 days, passing within 60 miles (97 km) of the lunar surface before continuing on to go 40,000 miles (64,374 km) beyond the moon and returning to Earth.
On December 11, the capsule is anticipated to splash down at sea.
Check out the full launch video below:
Also Read: NASA’s Mars InSight Lander Bids Its Final Farewell as it Approaches Death
