NASA’s mightiest moon rocket lifts off 50 years after Apollo
Nobody was more excited to see NASA’s new moon rocket blast off on its debut flight Wednesday morning than Michigan astronaut Christina Koch.
“We are jumping out of our spacesuits with excitement,” said the native of Grand Rapids.
After a nearly yearlong space station mission and all-female spacewalk, Koch, 43, is on NASA’s short list for a lunar flight and most of NASA’s corps of 42 active astronauts and 10 trainees, who were not even born yet when Apollo 17 moonwalkers Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out the era, 50 years ago next month could not help but be excited.
This time around, NASA’s new moon rocket blasted off on its debut flight with three test dummies aboard but Wednesday’s Florida launch brings the U.S. one step closer to putting astronauts back on the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program 50 years ago.
The plan calls for the crew capsule to be propelled into a wide orbit around the moon, before returning to Earth with a Pacific splashdown in December. If all goes well during the three-week voyage, NASA will send four astronauts around the moon on the next flight, in 2024, and land humans there as early as 2025.
Following years of delays and billions in cost overruns, the Space Launch System rocket thundered skyward, rising from Kennedy Space Center on 8.8 million pounds of thrust and hitting 100 mph within seconds. The Orion capsule
was perched on top and, less than two hours into the flight, busted out of Earth’s orbit toward the moon.
“It was pretty overwhelming,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “We’re going out to explore the heavens, and this is the next step.”
The moonshot follows nearly three months of vexing fuel leaks that kept the rocket bouncing between its hangar and the pad. Forced back indoors by Hurricane Ian at the end of September, the rocket stood its ground outside as Nicole swept through last week with gusts of more than 80 mph. Although the wind caused some damage, managers gave the green light for the launch.
An estimated 15,000 people jammed the launch site, with thousands more lining the beaches and roads outside the gates, to witness NASA’s long-awaited sequel to Project Apollo, when 12 astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 and 1972. Crowds also gathered outside NASA centers in Houston and Huntsville, Alabama, to watch the spectacle on giant screens.
Cheers accompanied the rocket as it rode a huge trail of flames toward space, with a half-moon glowing brightly and buildings shaking as though hit by a major quake.
“For the Artemis generation, this is for you,” launch director Charlie BlackwellThompson called out, referring to all those born after Apollo. She later told her team: “You have earned your place in history.”
The liftoff marked the start of NASA’s Artemis lunar-exploration program, named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister. The space agency is aiming to send four astronauts around the moon on the next flight, in 2024, and land humans there as early as 2025.
The 322-foot SLS is the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA, with more thrust than either the space shuttle or the mighty Saturn V that carried men to the moon. A series of hydrogen fuel leaks plagued the summertime launch attempts as well as countdown tests. A fresh leak erupted at a new location during Tuesday night’s fueling,
but an emergency team managed to tighten the faulty valve on the pad. Then a U.S. Space Force radar station went down, resulting in another scramble, this time to replace an ethernet switch.
“The rocket, it’s alive. It’s creaking. It’s making venting noises. It’s pretty scary,” said Trent Annis, one of the three men who entered the blast danger zone to fix Tuesday night’s leak. “My heart was pumping. My nerves were going. But yeah, we showed up today.”
Orion should reach the moon by Monday, more than 230,000 miles from Earth. After coming within 80 miles of the moon, the capsule will enter a farflung orbit stretching about 40,000 miles beyond.
The $4.1 billion test flight is set to last 25 days, roughly the same as when crews will be aboard. The space agency intends to push the spacecraft to its limits and uncover any problems before astronauts strap in. The mannequins — NASA calls them moonequins — are fitted with sensors to measure such things as vibration, acceleration and cosmic radiation.