On Monday, Nasa began the countdown for humanity’s first launch to the moon in 53 years. The 32-storey Space Launch System rocket will blast-off on Wednesday evening in the US (Thursday morning in Hong Kong) with four astronauts.
After a day in orbit around Earth, the Orion capsule will propel the astronauts to the moon and back. There are no stops – just a quick U-turn around the moon. The nearly 10-day flight will end with a splashdown in the Pacific.
Managers said the rocket is doing well following the latest round of repairs. Forecasters said the weather should cooperate.
Nasa’s Artemis II mission should have soared in February but was grounded by hydrogen fuel leaks. The leaks were fixed, but then a helium pressurisation line became clogged, forcing a return to the hangar late last month.
The rocket returned to the pad a week and a half ago and its US-Canadian crew arrived at the launch site on Friday.
Unlike Apollo, which sent only men to the moon from 1968 until 1972, Artemis’ debut crew includes a woman. It notably also includes a person of colour and a non-US citizen.
Artemis II’s pilot Victor Glover said over the weekend that he wants young people to see them and think: “Girl power and that’s awesome, and that young brown boys and girls can look at me and go ‘Hey, he looks like me and he’s doing what?’”
At the same time, Glover, who is Black, said he looks forward to the day when “we don’t have to talk about these firsts” and when exploring the cosmos becomes an all-encompassing “human history”.
Nasa has the first six days of April to launch Artemis II before standing down until the end of the month.
