NASA on Thursday said that the long-delayed launch of Artemis 2, the first crewed flyby mission to the moon in more than 50 years, could come as soon as April 1.
“We are on track for a launch as early as April 1, and we are working toward that date,” Lori Glaze, a senior NASA official, told a news conference, after technical difficulties delayed a launch originally expected last month.
“It’s a test flight, and it is not without risk, but our team and our hardware are ready,” she said. “Just keep in mind we still have work” to do.
Photo: AP
The US space agency last month announced a sudden revamp of the Artemis program, including the addition of a test mission before an eventual lunar landing.
The first launch window would be April 1 at 6:24pm, with several others available in the following days.
“We would anticipate on the order of about four opportunities within that six-day period,” Glaze said.
The Artemis 2 mission is meant to be the first flyby of the moon in more than half a century.
The rocket is to be crewed by three American astronauts — mission commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch — and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
After launch, NASA diagrams indicate Artemis 2 would circumnavigate Earth before leaving orbit to travel to the moon, without landing, for a lunar flyby before returning to Earth and splashing down in the ocean.
“Exactly how close the Artemis II crew will fly to the Moon would depend on when they launch,” ranging from 6,437km to 9,656km above the lunar surface, because the moon would “be in a different spot for each of the possible launch dates.”
The first Artemis flew much closer to the moon, but NASA said that Artemis 2 would still go “tens of thousands of miles closer than any human has been in more than 50 years.”
“At this distance the moon will appear to the crew to be about the size of a basketball held at arm’s length,” it said.
The mission is to be followed by Artemis 3 with the goal of “rendezvous in low-Earth orbit” of at least one lunar lander.
The next phase, Artemis 4, aims for a lunar landing in early 2028, after US President Donald Trump announced during his first term that he wanted Americans to once again set foot on the moon.
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