Artemis 1 is an upcoming flight test without a crew for NASA’s Artemis Program that is the first integrated flight of the agency’s Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. Formerly known as Exploration Mission-1, the mission’s name was changed after the introduction of the Artemis program.
The first completed core stage is on the move; being 212-foot tall is being sent to New Orleans to NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St.Louis, Mississippi, for testing trials via NASA’s Pegasus barge from the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility.
NASA’s Space Launch System core stage is the world’s tallest and most powerful rocket stage. It contains state-of-the-art avionics, two large propellant tanks that collectively hold 733,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to power its four RS-25 engines, propulsion systems. It also includes flight computers, cameras, batteries, power and data handling, sensors and other electronics.
NASA’s Most Powerful Rocket Stage to Go Through a New Test Soon
Once the core stage arrives at Stennis, it will be loaded into the B-2 Test Stand for the core stage Green Run test series. The complex test trial consists of gradually bringing the entire core stage, as well as its avionics and engines, to life for the first time to examine the stage and determine if fit for the flight ahead of the launch of Artemis 1.
The test will be similar to an actual rocket launch; its propellant will move steadily through the rocket’s two propellant tanks, the avionics and flight computers will operate all the systems and all four RS-25 engines will fire at the same time.
NASA plans to land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024. SLS is an advanced launch vehicle that will give a completely new capacity for science and human exploration beyond Earth’s orbit, along with Orion and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon.
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