After four cancelled attempts at a launch, NASA’s Artemis I mission finally successfully launched on November 16th, 2022 in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 12:47 AM Central Time.
This launch signifies a new era of manned spaceflight, with the ultimate goal to have a base on the moon, as the United States and various other countries attempt to solidify their presence in space.
The Artemis program is a series of ongoing space missions that will be run by NASA in the coming months and years.
Artemis I tested the most powerful rocket ever built, The Space Launch System, which generated over 8 million pounds of thrust during its liftoff. That is over 1.3 million pounds more powerful than the Saturn V rocket that was used for the Apollo missions in the mid 20th century.
The Space Launch System powers the Orion Capsule, which will take a 25 day journey to navigate the moon and surrounding areas. It is meant to test the capsule to its limits, as it will hold precious human lives. The capsule is projected to land somewhere off the coast of San Diego, California in the Pacific Ocean on December 11.
Although it is just a test flight, and an unmanned mission, Artemis I is an extremely serious endeavour. Humans have not been to the moon in over half a century. This new ‘space race’ will bring in billions if not trillions of dollars to economies of countries all over the globe.
NASA used mannequins to simulate the humans that will eventually be on board. They collected crucial data that will be used to ensure the safety of the astronauts when the second and third phases launch.
Artemis mission manager, Michael Sarafin admitted to running into various problems that did not match their predictions in terms of how the equipment has functioned, along with the data they have collected thus far.
An example of this is the Orion capsule’s star tracker, an intricate system that uses a map of the cosmos to tell the engineers of NASA on the ground how the capsule is oriented in space itself. Various data readings were not coming back as the crew had expected. However, NASA officials said it was simply part of the learning curve that comes every time with flying a new type of spacecraft.
“We had an understanding of the system headed into the mission. We had predictions whether it was how much power would we consumed or how much propellant or how hot the vehicle would be — and we’re not exactly matching that. And in most cases it is performing better. We’re seeing things that don’t quite match our predictions. And the team is spending the time to go through that with a fine-tooth comb to make sure that there isn’t something else there that is potentially a latent issue.” Safarin said.
There are three Artemis missions that NASA currently has in progress: Artemis I, an unmanned test flight, that will circle and fly past the Moon, collecting data and pictures simultaneously. Artemis II will be a crewed flight, and will take them beyond the Moon, and will take humans the furthest they’ve ever been in space. Artemis III will be the final leg of the program, in which NASA will land the first female astronaut, and first astronaut of color on the Moon. The crew plans to collect extensive data, and will spend approximately a week performing scientific studies on the lunar surface. Artemis III will be the first manned lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.
NASA’s long-term goals for the Artemis program are even more ambitious. They plan to use the knowledge, technology and research developed during the flights of Artemis to inform their eventual launch of a crewed mission to Mars in the coming decades.
In order to accomplish this grand feat, they plan to establish a long term presence on the moon, and create a lunar base. They will use this base to mine materials from the lunar surface, and transport astronauts as they embark on the journey to the distant planet, as well as to and from the International Space Station. It will serve as a ‘space hotel’ of sorts, and will be a rest stop for space travelers.
This base will also be used to transport large amounts of materials mined in asteroids. This is a ways away, but there is nearly an infinite amount of resources in asteroids just waiting to be mined, humans just merely lack the means to access them. There are certain asteroids that contain quintillions of dollars worth of materials, such as Iron, Nickel, Platinum, and many more.
Some say there is enough money in asteroids to make every person on Earth a billionaire. The base on the moon will make that fantasy slightly more realistic in the decades to come, and it all began on November 16th with the launch of Artemis I.
This was indeed an incredible launch.
I didn’t know no one’s been on the moon in that long! And very cool that Artemis II will land the first woman and POC!
This is awesome! Had no idea this was happening.