NASA’s Artemis 1 mission successfully launches to orbit beginning new era of exploration
Overcoming the curse of delays, NASA’s Artemis 1 successfully launched to orbit at 12:19 pm IST from Launch Complex 39B of the Kennedy Space Center on Nov 16.
Overcoming the curse of delays, NASA’s Artemis 1 successfully launched to orbit at 12:17 pm IST from the Launch Complex 39B of the Kennedy Space Center on November 16. NASA confirmed that the journey is turning out as planned.
NASA successfully launches Artemis
The mission saw the Space Launch System (SLS rocket) lift off with a thunderous roar generating 8.8 million pounds of thrust and becoming the world’s most powerful rocket. In a few minutes, Orion will be propelled into orbit and the core stage of the rocket will conduct a trans-lunar injection (TLI) maneuver to send Orion out of Earth’s gravitational influence and toward the Moon.
The TLI maneuver will be carried out by the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS), the second stage of the SLS rocket to which Orion is attached. After Orion is sent to the Moon, the ICPS will deploy ten CubeSats, meant to conduct several experiments, attached to it.
The mission is estimated to last 25 days, 11 hours and 32 minutes before a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on December 11. A few minutes after the launch, NASA confirmed the successful separation of the twin solid boosters from the core stage. The boosters are non-reusable and will crash into the ocean eventually.
The Orion spacecraft is currently in the Earth’s orbit and mission teams will carry out the TLI maneuver after the spacecraft deploys its massive solar arrays. The solar arrays are actually part of the European Service Module, a contribution of ESA, and it powers the crew module. These two components, along with the Launch Abort System make Orion.
