2023-08-09 02:24:14
WASHINGTON — The man set to become the first Canadian astronaut to fly around the moon is beginning to realize the magnitude of the undertaking.
“I already knew going to the moon was difficult,” joked Jeremy Hansen on Tuesday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida during an update on the Artemis II mission, the first manned flight in the lunar environment since. more than half a century.
“That’s why we do it – I already knew it was difficult. But my man, it’s really more difficult than I thought.
There was more wonder than apprehension in his voice as he and the other three crew members described their first visit so close to the systems, equipment and people that will propel them into space from next November.
“Seeing the capsule sent shivers down our spines – when we first saw the inside,” he said. It impresses.”
The November 2024 timeline remains intact, NASA officials say, with the caveat that things might still change given all the different components and variables that need to line up for the mission to stay on schedule.
The last time humans traveled this far was on the last Apollo mission in 1972. Artemis II will make Canada and the United States the only two countries to ever venture to the dark side of the Moon.
After orbiting Earth, the crew of Artemis II will travel hundreds of thousands of miles and make their way to the far side of the Moon, before their momentum propels them home once more — a journey in form of “eight”.
This mission is in fact a first step of the Artemis missions, which aim to deposit a man and a woman on the Moon from 2025, with a view to the possible sending of astronauts to Mars.
That’s the ultimate goal, says Mr. Hansen, 47, a CF-18 fighter pilot from London, Ont. But success isn’t in the end goal, it’s not in the landing or the launch date: success is in the learning that happens, like, right now (…) learning things which will serve us on our ultimate goal, which is to go to Mars.”
The other three astronauts on the Artemis II mission are all Americans: Mission Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover and Mission Specialist Christina Hammock Koch.
The Space X rocket
There is still some apprehension, however, regarding timelines around Artemis III, the mission that will land on the lunar surface.
NASA will continue to retain major contractors on the existing schedule, which has a tentative launch date of December 2025, NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said.
This includes Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, which is developing a version of its “Starship” rocket to launch the Artemis III crew and its moon landing module. A Starship rocket test launch failed spectacularly over the Gulf of Mexico last April.
Mr Free admitted he still had doubts whether the rocket would be ready in 2025, ‘because it has not yet been successfully launched’.
“They need to do multiple launches — not just for us, but for them. And then they have to do several launches for us. We can’t wait to see them succeed in their launches, starting with the next one.”
There are also issues with the heat shield, which protects the underside of the capsule from hellish temperatures during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
In last year’s unmanned Artemis I test, the shield, designed to burn during re-entry, did so less evenly than computer models originally predicted — a mystery engineers didn’t have. not solved yet.
“Obviously we’re going to make the right decision to keep the astronauts safe,” Free said. “If that means we have to make a drastic decision, then we will. But right now, we’re well on our way to determining the root cause. [du problème]and then we will make the final decision from there.”
The mission calls for the capsule to complete two orbits around Earth before going behind the Moon, which will generate enough momentum to bring the capsule home — the surest way to ensure that Artemis II will achieve its objectives, explained Mission Commander Wiseman.
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