On November 16, at 1:47 a.m EST, NASA’s Orion spacecraft lifted off with the SLS rocket.
The mission called Artemis 1 is a 25-day uncrewed test that has a main goal of testing NASA’s Orion spacecraft in the deep space environment.
Orion will be orbiting the moon and then use the moon’s gravity to shoot it back towards Earth at the end of the mission.
The Most Powerful Rocket
Orion was launched on the Space Launch System or SLS for short, this is the world's most powerful rocket producing 8 million pounds of thrust. It beats SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket which can produce 5.5 million pounds of thrust.
The SLS rocket is the size of a football field and reuses a lot of parts that flew on the space shuttle. Its four large engines on the spacecraft are RS-25 engines that were used on the shuttle. Its two large side boosters also came from the space shuttle and its orange first stage came from the shuttle. Sitting on top of the rocket is Orion which is covered by the Launch Abort System (LAS) which would carry it away if the rocket was in danger of exploding.
The Orion Spacecraft
The Orion spacecraft was launched on an orbital flight back in 2014 on a Delta IV Heavy rocket, now the third most powerful rocket in the world.
This flight lasted 2 full hours and was a complete success. Since that successful launch back in 2014, the spacecraft has been waiting for launch since 2015 and now is going to the moon.
Artemis Back To The Moon
The Artemis program is funded by NASA and has a main goal of landing humans back on the moon by 2025. Next month will be the 50th anniversary of Apollo 17 the last moon landing, Gene Cernan (1934-2017) stepped off the surface of the moon. And now the planned return date for Artemis 1 is on December 9th, 2022, which overlaps the Apollo 17 mission which was December 7-19, 1972.
When NASA goes back to the moon, Orion is planned to dock in lunar orbit with a space station called Gateway. Due for its assembly in 2024, the astronauts would be able to take a lander down to the surface on the moon and stay for weeks and then they would launch from the moon and back up to Gateway, and then Orion would take the astronauts home.
Artemis 2, the first crewed mission in the Artemis program will hopefully launch in May, 2024.
Click here to watch a video of the launch!