NASA’s Area Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop a cell launcher at Launch Pad 39B, Wednesday, August 17, 2022, after being rolled out to the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart in Florida. NASA’s Artemis I mission is the primary built-in check of the company’s deep area exploration programs: the Orion spacecraft, SLS rocket, and supporting floor programs. Launch of the uncrewed flight check is focused for no sooner than August 29. Credit score: NASA/Joel Kowsky
Earlier than our Area Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft can launch our nation into a brand new period of spaceflight, the duo should first endure a moist gown rehearsal on the launch pad previous to liftoff.
Watch SLS and Orion proceed on their path to the pad as they journey to Kennedy Area Heart’s Launch Pad 39B for a full countdown rehearsal – an operation involving a whole bunch of engineers stationed all throughout the nation.
See Episode One: The Most Highly effective Rocket NASA Has Ever Constructed.
See Episode Two: The Orion Spacecraft.
Video Transcript:
Throughout the nation are sacred websites that seize the spirit of America’s character and a type of locations is correct right here. The Kennedy Area Heart.
Each single car that has carried people past the bounds of low Earth orbit has undergone integration and testing in that car meeting constructing, crawled down this roadway and launched proper right here from the Kennedy Area Heart.
The Area Launch System mated with the Orion spacecraft will proceed this proud custom.
As quickly as we rollout of the Automobile Meeting Constructing, Excessive Bay 3, and the world will get an opportunity to see this rocket, I believe, I believe it'll be stunning.
On March seventeenth, NASA took a large step towards returning humanity to the moon. The absolutely assembled Area Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission made its debut exterior the large Automobile Meeting Constructing.
We’ve seen the cell launcher exterior, and it’s large, however now add an over-300-foot rocket on prime of it, it’s simply gonna be superb.
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, oversees the launch countdown, in the end offering the “go” for launch.
NTD, launch director, representing this group and all of the women and men which have labored to make today occur, I proudly offer you a go to roll the Artemis launch car to the pad.
Girls and gents, the world’s strongest rocket proper right here.
As soon as exterior, the rocket started its almost four-mile journey to the pad, driving atop a 6.6-million-pound crawler-transporter, which was initially constructed to move the Apollo Moon rocket.
In a single 12 months, we've utterly stacked the car, we've accomplished most of our testing, all very profitable, and we're so near launch. The thrill is simply loopy.
Now NASA’s new Moon rocket is making the identical journey the Saturn V took 50 years in the past.
And simply as all eyes are on the SLS tonight because it makes its journey. In a number of quick weeks, all eyes are going to be on the sky because it rocks the Area coast and takes its maiden flight across the Moon.
It's superb to see the end result of all of this work of a few years from many industries of many individuals which have come and go to have an opportunity to then now see their work going over to the pad after which launching to go to the Moon.
The rocket is rolling to historic launch complicated 39B – its launch pad used for each Apollo and shuttle launches, sending a whole bunch of astronauts to area all through the many years and now on faucet to ship a whole bunch extra as we return to the Moon and enterprise past to Mars.
However for this mission, there shall be no astronauts on board.
Earlier than the uncrewed Artemis I stack can launch to our nearest celestial physique, it has to journey to the pad for a moist gown rehearsal – a check run of rocket, capsule, launch group and launch pad by their paces simulating a launch countdown.
After we get to the pad, the pad group shall be connecting all of the interfaces between the pad and cell launcher in order that we are able to go forward and begin our operations on the pad. So at that time the launch director actually takes over and she's going to go down the sequence as if it was actually a standard launch day.
Moist gown rehearsal is actually launch and not using a launch. It's actually the rationale we’re doing it's to confirm and validate the entire items that go into launch countdown.
So moist gown is absolutely our alternative to search out any points or changes that we have to make in our launch countdown.
For Artemis I, the moist gown rehearsal is the ultimate and most important check earlier than the rocket can return to the launch pad for liftoff to the Moon. In the course of the countdown, over 730,000 gallons of super-cooled liquid propellants shall be loaded into the rocket as a part of the almost two-day launch countdown.
We'll configure the entire floor programs precisely the way in which we might for launch, and we are going to absolutely load the core stage and the interim cryo propulsion stage with their liquid fuels.
That’ll be the primary time that that’s been executed from right here at Kennedy Area Heart. There have been items of these items executed in a number of totally different areas. We’ve examined all of those programs in a number of totally different places, however this would be the first time the place we pull all of it collectively and do all of all of it in the identical development that we’ve received laid out for launch countdown.
Moist gown is the largest milestone we've other than launch as a result of that implies that the rocket is now put collectively, has been examined individually and collectively and it is able to go and be crammed with gas to simulate how we’re gonna to do it on the pad after which it tells us the rocket is able to go for launch.
And, behind that moist gown rehearsal is a launch group made up of a whole bunch of engineers monitoring every system of the 320-foot-tall Artemis I rocket and capsule.
Sitting in firing room 1 is the core launch management group, monitoring a whole bunch of launch commit standards to make sure the bottom programs and flight hardware are prepared for launch.
Now you'll suppose that launch management group in firing room 1 is it, that’s all you want. We have now an expansive help group throughout actually the whole NASA enterprise that's supporting us on launch day.
And that help spans the whole nation, from further system engineers sitting in Kennedy’s Firing Room 2, to the flight management group at Johnson Area Heart in Houston, to the contractors accountable for designing and constructing every phase of the rocket and capsule.
This group is absolutely shaping as much as be an incredible, very expert and able to function and execute launch for Artemis I.
With the Artemis I launch group now absolutely licensed, and the moist gown rehearsal full, SLS and Orion are prepared for his or her last pitstop: returning to the VAB earlier than venturing again to Launch Pad 39B for liftoff.
I imply we're going, and we're going collectively, and we're having a possibility to do that in a brand new era of area exploration by which I can say that I’m actually part of.
You understand, you come on daily basis to the VAB and also you see the rocket and you may’t imagine what we've achieved.
Individuals all through historical past have all the time explored and also you by no means know what you’re going to be taught.
Exploration isn't all the time in regards to the vacation spot, nevertheless it’s the trail that you just journey, the belongings you be taught alongside the way in which.
And the issues we’re going to be taught are going to be unimaginable. We are able to’t even start to know what these are at the moment.
Our workforce has been a relentless spirit. We think about, we construct, we by no means cease pushing the envelope of what's doable.
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