NASA launches crewed Orion spacecraft to the Moon!
New York, April 2nd, TASS reports.
The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, carrying the Orion spacecraft, has launched into space bound for the Moon.
The spacecraft carries four NASA astronauts from the United States.
The launch took place at 18:35 local time (01:35 Moscow time, 06:35 Beijing time) from Launch Complex 39A at the John F. Kennedy Space Center. The American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are expected to orbit the Moon without landing, then return to Earth.
The mission is expected to last a total of 10 days.
One and a half hours before launch, engineers detected a malfunction in the flight abort system, but the issue was quickly resolved.
The last crewed lunar landing mission occurred in December 1972 as part of NASA's Apollo 17 mission.
In the spring of 2019, NASA announced the Artemis lunar exploration program, which is divided into three phases.
As reported just now by CNN, the moment many have been waiting for has arrived: the core stage of the SLS rocket—the large orange central fuselage—has burned through over 700,000 gallons of fuel and shut down its four engines.
With the MECO (Main Engine Cut Off) complete, the next phase of the mission will be handled by the upper portion of the rocket—the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS).
The ICPS will continue accelerating the Orion spacecraft, steadily increasing its speed until it approaches escape velocity (nearly 25,000 miles per hour).
Fun fact: The RL-10 engine powers the ICPS. This engine previously propelled spacecraft that visited every planet in the solar system.
Now that its fuel is exhausted, the core stage will separate like the solid rocket boosters and fall back to Earth, eventually sinking into the Atlantic Ocean.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1861311175326728/
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