Artemis II moon rocket refueled in practice countdown setting stage for historic flight
CBSN
NASA cleared engineers to load more than 750,000 gallons of supercold propellants into the agency's huge Space Launch System rocket Thursday in a second "wet dress rehearsal" countdown to verify leak repairs and clear the way for a flight to the moon as early as March 6. In:
NASA cleared engineers to load more than 750,000 gallons of supercold propellants into the agency's huge Space Launch System rocket Thursday in a second "wet dress rehearsal" countdown to verify leak repairs and clear the way for a flight to the moon as early as March 6.
The practice countdown began Tuesday night, kicking off a carefully choreographed series of steps to ready the world's most powerful operational rocket for a simulated launch Thursday at 8:30 p.m. EST. Controllers then planned to carry out additional tests to make sure the team can recycle, hold and restart an actual launch countdown as needed to handle unexpected problems.
The initial stages of the rehearsal countdown went well and at 9:35 a.m., Launch Director Charlie-Blackwell Thompson gave her "go" to begin the multi-hour process of loading 196,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and 537,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen fuel into the SLS rocket's first stage. The rocket's second stage holds another 22,500 gallons of propellant.
If no out-of-limits leaks or other major problems are detected, Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen will go into pre-flight medical quarantine Friday, aiming for launch on a flight around the far side of the moon as early as March 6.
It will be the first piloted flight to the moon since the final Apollo landing in 1972, carrying the crew farther from Earth than any astronauts in space history. Wiseman and his crewmates will also be the first to ride into space atop the 322-foot-tall Space Launch System rocket, making only its second flight, and the first to fly aboard an Orion deep space crew capsule.
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NASA cleared engineers to load more than 750,000 gallons of supercold propellants into the agency's huge Space Launch System rocket Thursday in a second "wet dress rehearsal" countdown to verify leak repairs and clear the way for a flight to the moon as early as March 6. In:
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