Artemis

Dakota Tebaldi

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Artemis is the name of NASA's current modern-day project for sending humans back to the Moon and then beyond. Planning for a new Moon mission began in the mid-2000's under a different name (Constellation), and plans and names changed over the years as budget and political priorities shifted - you know how that goes. But Artemis is the program that has officially made it to a launch, using vehicles and systems that originally began development under those earlier programs.

Artemis launches on the Space Launch System (SLS), a biiiig staged rocket system that will be used for all of NASA's interplanetary missions going forward. It consists of Lockheed's Orion Crew Module - which looks very much like the old Apollo command module, but bigger and with more modern technology, including solar arrays for main power - and the European Service Module, which was built by Airbus. Lunar landings, when those start to happen, will be made using landers build by several different vendors, and they will be much different from Apollo missions. Each lander vendor will be responsible for launching their lunar lander unmanned and putting it into a waiting orbit around the Moon, after which that mission's crewed Orion will be launched, dock with the lander in lunar orbit, and land from there. The first lander is being built by SpaceX. Artemis missions will spend up to two weeks around the Moon initially, but a Lunar space station with 6-month missions is being planned for the future.

Artemis 1 is the first mission and will be launching, hopefully, in less than a month! It will be an UNMANNED, basically test and rehearsal mission. It will fly all the way to the Moon, enter a high retrograde orbit, collect tasty data, and then return to Earth.

This video describes the whole mission:




The launch windows for Artemis 1 are (all times Eastern):

Aug. 29 at 8:33AM

Sept. 2 at 12:48PM

Sept. 5 at 5:12PM

We'll then have to wait until 2024 for Artemis 2, which will be manned but won't make a landing on the Moon yet, followed hopefully by the first Moon landing in 2025.



Artemis is our generation's Apollo. With the added benefit of being science and exploration for its own sake rather than as a pretext for "beating the Russians" (or whomever). I dunno if you can tell, but I'm super hyped for it. :D There's little bits and details I'm not the happiest about, but I'm not letting them spoil the whole thing for me. Artemis is going to put both the first woman AND the first non-white person on the Moon. I've always regretted never getting to see a shuttle launch in person, but I really hope that - assuming Congress doesn't kill it before I get the chance - I will be able to create an opportunity to go and watch an Artemis launch live. Until then, there's always livestreams!
 

Dakota Tebaldi

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In case anyone is curious, Artemis was the fraternal twin sister of Apollo, hence the name choice.

This is my favorite photo so far. It was taken during Artemis' wet dress rehearsal in June. A wet dress rehearsal is when the rocket is put on the launch pad and they practice the entire launch sequence, including filling the tanks with liquid fuel, except that the engines aren't ignited and the thing isn't literally launched. And then the launch cancel and de-fuel procedures are practiced as well. Anyways, while the rocket was on the launch pad they got this brilliant shot:



I dig the retro NASA logo on the booster. ^^ IIRC, there's one like it on the Orion module itself too. It's a strange placement here though for a retro callback if that was the intention because the red logo actually post-dates the Apollo missions.
 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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Artemis I will be rolling out on August 18, traveling from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39B. The rollout will be livestreamed on NASA's YouTube channel beginning at 6PM Eastern if you want to have a peek. Unless you're a Supergeek though you probably won't want to watch the whole thing, as the distance from the VAB to LC-39B is just over four miles and the crawler-transporter's top speed when loaded - that's highest possible speed, not the speed it will actually be going which is less than that - is roughly one mile an hour, so it'll be an extended event. :D

This is one of the self-same crawler-transporters that delivered the Saturn V and later the Shuttle to the launchpad, although this particular crawler underwent an extensive refit in 2012 in order to be able to carry the SLS - Artemis's rocket - and enough was changed that there's probably room for a Ship of Theseus discussion there if someone wanted to have one. Fun fact: NASA technically had to get permission (a formality, really) to renovate one of their crawlers like this because in 2000 both crawlers were added to the National Register of Historic Places.
 

Dakota Tebaldi

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The first in a series of mini docs NASA has made about the Artemis 1 mission.


Upcoming episodes will cover more about the mission and its payload.

Artemis 1 is uncrewed but that is NOT to say that it's going up empty. It will be carrying some interesting stuff; I'll make another post about it later today.
 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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The Artemis rollout was delayed for a couple of hours by thunderstorm activity, but the rollout began at 10PM Eastern and it was purtyful


Those are all full-size photos so click through to embiggen and be dazzled.

But as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, the crawler-transporter moves at a speed that would make your grandma impatient, so it hasn't reached the launch pad quite yet but will be there eventually, sometime within the next several hours? Kennedy Space Center has a livestream going, but it is not commentated so I suppose (if you want to bother) you may just want to put the stream up on your second (or third) monitor and wait until you notice some bright lights starting to appear out the corner of your eye. Or you can check back after sunrise, it might be 8 or 9 in the morning by the time it arrives.

 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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This is a video made a few months ago by ESA, the European Space Agency, about the crawler-transporter:

 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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I will never not love NASA program propaganda videos. 😁

 

Dakota Tebaldi

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HA! Seeeeee, it's not just me! :D
 

Dakota Tebaldi

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FOUR MORE DAYS, everyone!

The launch windows for Artemis 1 are as follows, all times Eastern:

- AUG 29 at 8:33am (2-hour window)

- SEP 2 at 12:48pm (2-hour window)

- SEP 5 at 5:12pm (90-minute window)

Okay, so here's the deal. The launch countdown officially begins at 10:23am on Saturday, August 27th. That's when the mission clock starts ticking, and although video coverage won't begin at that point, obviously things will be happening for the mission; if you want a schedule of generally what they'll be doing and when during prelaunch you can find one here.

The biggest takeaway point, especially if you plan to be watching, is that there will be a discrepancy between the countdown clock and the actual launch. At 40 minutes to actual launch time there is a planned 30-minute hold in the countdown - that is, when the countdown timer reaches -10 minutes, it will STOP COUNTING for a time. This hold is there so that range and launch teams can address any problems or issues that aren't major enough to outright cancel the launch when they're found, but do still have to be fixed in order for the launch to happen - this can be anything from a minor sensor or equipment issue, to unfavorable weather that needs to clear up, to things like some dweeb boating through the offshore downrange area that has to be moved out of the way. The hold is 30 minutes by default and will be at least that long, but it can be extended for however long is necessary to address the problem, with the caveat that if the hold can't be lifted by 10 minutes or more before the launch window ends, the launch will be scrubbed.

If everything goes well, 5 minutes before the expected end of the hold the launch director will poll the controllers for a GO/NO-GO status, and when the hold lifts the clock will begin counting again, from -10 minutes.

Speaking of video coverage! NASA will be streaming the launch live obvs. Soft coverage begins at 12am on the 29th, when tanking operations begin (i.e., when they start filling the rocket with liquid H2 and O2). But full commentated coverage will begin at 6:30am August 29th, about two hours before launch. Spanish-language coverage begins an hour later at 7:30am, both times Eastern. Livestream link:


If you're interested in Artemis 1 I HIGHLY recommend reading the web Press Kit, which gives a great overview of the mission, the launch and flight plans, the science payloads (some important stuff there, worth taking a peek at) and other such things. If you're a little more interested and want something much more in-depth about Artemis 1 there is the PDF reference guide.
 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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Bartholomew Gallacher

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What makes me wonder: why always the names of greek gods? Since many state building are paying hommage to Rome, Latin would be far better suited for that, so that would be Diana.
 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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Hey, remember the very first program was named Mercury. So they got a callout. ^^

Plus, all lunar missions are...well, Lunar missions - another callout. They get repped!
 

Govi

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Apollo is the Roman version of the Greek Phoebus, iirc.
 

Govi

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The name Gemini was Latin, too.