NASA sent a spacecraft to the moon half a century later

Americans, after 50 years, return to the moon. They tried to prevent a thunderstorm, the risk of fuel leakage, but the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket nevertheless started from the 38B complex of the Kennedy Space Center. The Orion spacecraft went to the Earth’s satellite as part of the Artemis-1 mission at 9.48 Moscow time. This start is a test one, it includes three flybys of the Moon and a return to Earth for 42 days. “MK” learned the details of a significant event and asked about the opinion of Russian scientists about it.

One of the strongest features of the NASA agency is that its leadership, even if its top officials change, does not deviate from its intended goals. Overseas have long understood that manned cosmonautics is a win-win topic for the electorate. Therefore, after Donald Trump’s statement in 2017 about the need to return America to its former greatness (“Make America Great Again!”), Biden’s cabinet also supported the lunar theme. Moreover, in no case should this field of activity be ceded to China, which announced the first manned flight to the Moon in 2030.

So, a two-stage SLS launch vehicle was chosen for the flight, capable of launching up to 130 tons of cargo into low orbit. This is the “heaviest” rocket to date. However, on her first flight, she recovered in a lightweight version, designed to deliver 27 tons into orbit, namely, the 25-ton Orion spacecraft. This will be his second space launch. There are no astronauts in Orion yet, but there are living creatures. These are yeasts and molds – scientists will check if the flight to the moon will have an effect on their DNA. In addition, seeds of one of the simplest flowering plants, Talya’s clover and two types of algae, are placed in the living space. Well, in order to test the possible negative impact of interplanetary radiation on the human body, two anthropomorphic mannequins Helga and Zohar, imitating the bodies of a woman and a man, were placed in the ship. They are equipped with dosimeters to study radiation along the entire flight path.

There is also a payload from the outside of the Orion. These are 10 scientific satellites, which will be separated from the ship after a few hours of flight.

Recall that the first attempt to launch the SLS was made on August 29 this year, but the launch was canceled due to problems with the temperature sensor of one of the engines and fuel leakage. However, after the information about the leak was not confirmed, a new misfortune arose related to the temperature of one of the four RS-25 engines. It could not be brought to the required range in any way. In addition, literally an hour before the scheduled launch time, experts suddenly suspected the appearance of a crack in one of the flanges of the intermediate tank on the main stage of the rocket, that is, the part connecting the pipeline to the tank …

After all the shortcomings were eliminated, the launch was scheduled for September 3, but again a hydrogen leak was discovered. On September 27, the start of the SLS was again postponed due to a tropical storm.

And today, November 16, the launch vehicle, the tanks of which were filled with hydrogen and oxygen oxidizer a few hours before the launch, nevertheless went to the Moon at 9.48 Moscow time.

8.5 minutes after launch, the upper stage of the SLS with Orion entered the initial orbit. She will have to start her engine twice, and then send the Orion to the moon in splendid isolation. A little over a month has been allocated for the entire mission – 42 days, 3 hours and 20 minutes.

As close as possible, the ship will approach the Moon only 100 kilometers, and then, after the first orbit, will head for its flyby in a high retrograde orbit (it is located at a distance of 70 thousand kilometers from the satellite surface). And after this flyby, which will last about two weeks, it will circle the Moon for the third time in an elliptical orbit, and then head towards the Earth.

If everything goes according to plan, that is, the mission is completed successfully, then Artemis-2 will be sent to the Moon in 2024 with astronauts on board. They also, only fly around the satellite along the trajectory described above and return back. The landing of the two lucky ones is scheduled for the third stage of Artemis, that is, in 2025. It is assumed that two astronauts will spend on the surface of the moon, at its south pole, six Earth days.

According to Igor Mitrofanov, Department of Nuclear Planetology of the Institute for Space Research (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, there is nothing fundamentally new in the program of this flight that American or Soviet specialists would not work out earlier. With the exception of perhaps the new technologies that were applied by scientists in the creation of space technology.

If we turn to the history of the exploration of the Moon, its first automatic flyby was provided by Soviet scientists in 1959 on Luna-3. Then there was a successful flyby of Selena in 1968 by the Zond-5 spacecraft, in which there were animals and plants: two Central Asian turtles, Drosophila flies, flour worms, bacteria (E. coli culture), plants: chlorella, tradescantia with buds, onion and seeds of higher plants – wheat, peas, barley, pine, carrots, tomatoes, mustard. In addition, cultures of human cells were on board the spacecraft.

As Vyacheslav Shurshakov, head of the laboratory at the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, specified, a phantom with dosimeters was placed inside the habitable compartment of the Zond to estimate the radiation dose that an astronaut would receive on the lunar track when passing through the radiation belts and flying around the moon. Their subsequent analysis showed that “radiation conditions on the investigated path Earth-Moon-Earth in a calm state of solar activity are not dangerous for humans.

After Zond-5, our country had two more successful flybys of the Moon – in 1969 and 1970.