Ifas.chair22 [John Hackett]: ARTEMIS 1 LUNAR TEST MISSION UPDATE: The launch of the Artemis 1 Lunar test mission is now scheduled for August 29th at 8.33 am (EDT) - 1.33 pm (Irish Summer Time) with a 2 hour window. There are backup launch opportunities on September 2nd & 5th. If Artemis 1 launches as scheduled the mission duration will be 42 days with the splashdown of the Orion Crew Module on October 10th. The SLS mega rocket will place the Orion spacecraft and the modified Delta IV upper stage in a parking orbit between 28 and 32 degrees inclination (same as Apollo); the RL 10 of the upper stage will be restarted, just like the Saturn V third stage, for the Trans Lunar Injection burn. Unlike Apollo, the Orion spacecraft will enter a retrograde HALO rectilinear orbit with a perigee 3000 Km above the Moon’s North Pole and an apogee of 70,000 Km. This orbit is intended for the Lunar Gateway Station and will use the Earth - Moon Lagrange points to create a stable orbit which will require little reboost. The orbit will be tested by the pathfinder CAPSTONE lunar probe which has already been launched on a low energy trajectory to the Moon. This mission is an automated test of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft with 3 “smart” mannequins instead of the crew. The giant rocket is a reconfiguration of the Shuttle Launch System (SLS) with an enlarged and re-engineered Shuttle ET as the core, extended Solid Rocket Booster (5 segments) and 4 flight proven Shuttle main engines (RS-25) in a module at the base of the core along with a modified Delta IV upper stage. The Orion spacecraft is a joint venture between NASA & ESA with an American Crew Module and European Service Module. The launch will stream live on NASA TV and the NASA channel on YouTube (
www.youtube.com/c/nasa
). If successful the mission will be repeated as Artemis 2 with 4 astronauts early in 2024.
Last edit: 2 years 4 months ago by SEA.sec1.
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