NASA prepares for third attempt at Artemis lunar rocket launch - Reuters

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Nov 15 (Reuters) - Ground teams astatine Kennedy Space Center prepared connected Tuesday for a 3rd effort astatine launching NASA's towering, next-generation satellite rocket, the debut formation of the U.S. abstraction agency's Artemis lunar program, 50 years aft Apollo's past satellite mission.

The 32-story gangly Space Launch System (SLS) rocket was owed to blast disconnected from Cape Canaveral, Florida, astatine 1:04 a.m. EST (0604 GMT) connected Wednesday to nonstop its Orion capsule connected a 25-day voyage astir the satellite and backmost without astronauts aboard.

NASA flight-readiness crews were anxious for occurrence aft 10 weeks beset by engineering difficulties, 2 hurricanes and 2 trips from the spacecraft's hangar to its motorboat pad.

Two erstwhile motorboat attempts, connected Aug. 29 and Sept. 3, were aborted due to the fact that of substance enactment leaks and different method problems that NASA has since resolved. While moored to its motorboat pad past week, the rocket endured fierce winds and rains from Hurricane Nicole, forcing a two-day formation postponement.

Post-storm inspections recovered the hurricane had torn disconnected a portion of ultra-thin protective sealant from Orion's exterior, but NASA officials said Monday nighttime the harm was insignificant and posed negligible hazard to the launch.

Weather is ever a origin beyond NASA's control. The latest forecast connected Monday called for a 90% accidental of favorable conditions during Wednesday's two-hour motorboat window, according to the U.S. Space Force astatine Cape Canaveral.

Dubbed Artemis I, the ngo marks the archetypal formation of the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule together, built nether NASA contracts with Boeing Co (BA.N) and Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N), respectively.

It besides signals a large alteration successful absorption for NASA's post-Apollo quality spaceflight program, aft decades focused connected low-Earth orbit with abstraction shuttles and the International Space Station. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/3PPRsbN)

SUCCESSOR TO APOLLO

Named for the Greek goddess of the hunt - and Apollo's duplicate sister - Artemis aims to instrumentality astronauts to the moon's aboveground arsenic aboriginal arsenic 2025.

Twelve astronauts walked connected the satellite during six Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972, the lone spaceflights yet to spot humans connected the lunar surface. But Apollo, calved of the U.S.-Soviet abstraction contention during the Cold War, was little science-driven than Artemis.

The caller satellite programme has enlisted commercialized partners specified arsenic Elon Musk's SpaceX and the abstraction agencies of Europe, Canada and Japan to yet found a semipermanent lunar basal arsenic a stepping chromatic to adjacent much ambitious quality voyages to Mars.

Getting the SLS-Orion spacecraft disconnected the crushed is simply a cardinal archetypal step. Its archetypal voyage is intended to enactment the 5.75-million-pound conveyance done its paces successful a rigorous trial flight, pushing its plan limits to beryllium the spacecraft is suitable to alert astronauts.

If the ngo succeeds, a crewed Artemis II formation astir the satellite and backmost could travel arsenic aboriginal arsenic 2024, followed wrong a fewer much years by the program's archetypal lunar landing of astronauts, 1 of them a woman, with Artemis III.

Billed arsenic the astir powerful, analyzable rocket successful the world, the SLS represents the biggest caller vertical motorboat strategy the U.S. abstraction bureau has built since the Saturn V of the Apollo era.

Barring last-minute difficulties, the motorboat countdown should extremity with the rocket's 4 main R-25 engines and its duplicate solid-rocket boosters igniting to nutrient 8.8 cardinal pounds of thrust, sending the spacecraft streaking skyward.

About 90 minutes aft liftoff, the rocket's precocious signifier volition propel Orion retired of Earth orbit connected people for a 25-day formation that brings it to wrong 60 miles of the lunar aboveground earlier sailing 40,000 miles (64,374 km) beyond the satellite and backmost to Earth. The capsule is expected to splash down successful the Pacific connected Dec. 11.

Although nary humans volition beryllium aboard, Orion volition transportation a simulated unit of 3 - 1 antheral and 2 pistillate mannequins - fitted with sensors to measurement radiation levels and different stresses that real-life astronauts would experience.

A apical nonsubjective for the ngo is to trial the durability of Orion's vigor shield during re-entry arsenic it hits Earth's ambiance astatine 24,500 miles (39,429 km) per hour, oregon 32 times the velocity of sound, connected its instrumentality from lunar orbit - overmuch faster than re-entries of capsules returning from the abstraction station.

The vigor shield is designed to withstand re-entry friction expected to rise temperatures extracurricular the capsule to astir 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 Celsius).

More than a decennary successful improvement with years of delays and fund overruns, the SLS-Orion spacecraft has truthful acold outgo NASA slightest $37 billion, including design, construction, investigating and crushed facilities. NASA's Office of Inspector General has projected full Artemis costs volition tally to $93 cardinal by 2025.

NASA defends the programme arsenic a boon to abstraction exploration that has generated tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars successful commerce.

Reporting by Joey Roulette successful Cape Canaveral, Fla., and Steve Gorman successful Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Gerry Doyle

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