NASA's Next-generation Artemis Mission Heads to Moon on Debut Test Flight

TEMPO.CO, Cape Canaveral - NASA's towering next-generation moon rocket blasted off from Florida early on Wednesday, Nov. 16, on its debut flight, a crewless voyage inaugurating the U.S. space agency's Artemis exploration program 50 years after the final Apollo moon mission.

The 32-story Space Launch System (SLS) rocket surged off the launch pad from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral at 1:47 a.m. EST (06:47 GMT), to send its Orion capsule on a three-week test journey.

About 90 minutes after launch, the rocket's upper stage fired thrusters for a "trans-lunar injection" burn propelling Orion out of Earth orbit on course for the moon. That put the capsule on track for a 25-day flight that will bring it to within 60 miles (97 km) of the lunar surface before sailing 40,000 miles (64,374 km) beyond the moon and back to Earth.

Liftoff came on the third attempt at launching the long-delayed, multibillion-dollar rocket, after 10 weeks beset by numerous technical mishaps, back-to-back hurricanes and two excursions trundling the spacecraft out of its hangar to the launch pad.

Wednesday's launch was not without its own drama. A three-man "red team" was scrambled out to the launch pad in the final hours of the countdown to tighten bolts on a loose connection identified as the source of a potentially flight-thwarting fuel leak.

Although specially trained to venture into the "blast zone" around a fully fueled rocket, the three were later hailed as heroes who may well have saved the mission.

"It's a great day," a beaming NASA chief Bill Nelson later said in a brief post-launch webcast interview.

Dubbed Artemis I, the mission marked the first flight for the combined SLS rocket and Orion capsule, built by Boeing Co (BA.N) and Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N), respectively, under contract with NASA.

It also signals a major change in direction for NASA's post-Apollo human spaceflight program after decades focused on low-Earth orbit with space shuttles and the International Space Station. 

Named for the ancient Greek goddess of the hunt - and Apollo's twin sister - Artemis aims to return astronauts to the moon's surface as early as 2025.

Twelve astronauts walked on the moon during six Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972, the only spaceflights yet to place humans on the lunar surface. But Apollo, born of the Cold War-era U.S.-Soviet space race, was less science-driven than Artemis.

The new moon program has enlisted commercial partners such as Elon Musk's SpaceX and the space agencies of Europe, Canada and Japan to eventually establish a long-term lunar base as a stepping stone to even more ambitious human voyages to Mars.

'YOU COULD FEEL IT'

The Artemis I countdown climaxed with the rocket's four main R-25 engines and its twin solid-rocket boosters roaring to life, producing 8.8 million pounds of thrust that sent the spacecraft streaking skyward and lighting up the night sky over Florida's central Atlantic space coast.

The rocket's thunder shook the space center as a throng of spectators cheered and screamed with excitement.

"It was just incredible to see. It was so bright, so loud, you could feel it," said NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, among those who could be selected for a future Artemis crew.

Addressing mission control moments after liftoff, Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson saluted the hard work of her colleagues.

"We are all part of something incredibly special, the first launch of Artemis, the first step in returning our country to the moon and on to Mars," she said to applause.

The capsule is expected to splash down at sea on Dec. 11.

REUTERS

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