The American super-heavy launch vehicle SLS (Space Launch System) with the Orion spacecraft, which is to fly to the Moon in a test unmanned mode as part of the Artemis 1 (Artemis-1) mission, will start on Monday from spaceport in Florida, according to NASA.
The launch is scheduled to take place in a two-hour time window that opens at 08:33 US East Coast Time (15:33 Moscow time) from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39B.
As part of the Artemis 1 test mission, the Orion spacecraft will fly unmanned to the Moon, where it will orbit for several weeks. The ship will then return to Earth. The entire mission will last 42 days. The Orion descent capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on October 10th.
The test flight should demonstrate the readiness of the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft for a manned mission.
The SLS launch vehicle developed by Boeing Corporation is currently the most powerful in the world. In the basic version, it is capable of launching 95 tons of payload into orbit. Promising modifications of the launch vehicle should provide an increase in carrying capacity up to 130 tons.
According to the plan of the American space agency, in 2024 it is planned to carry out the Artemis 2 mission, in which a crew of four astronauts will go to the moon. The manned spacecraft will have to fly around the Earth’s natural satellite. After a long space flight, the Orion descent ship with astronauts will splash down in the Pacific Ocean. As part of the Artemis 3 mission, which is currently scheduled for 2025, US astronauts will have to land on the surface of the moon.
The Artemis program was made public in September 2020. Its main goal is the return, 53 years after the last mission, of American astronauts to the lunar surface, the construction of a near-lunar station and the preparation of conditions for a possible colonization of the Moon in the future.
According to the American experts from The Planetary Society, NASA has been developing the SLS launch vehicle and the Orion spacecraft for 17 years. For these purposes, the agency spent about $50 billion.
