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Fifty years after wrapping up the Apollo missions, NASA is ready to return to the moon.
On Monday, the agency’s ambitious, expensive and exhilarating Artemis program is scheduled to commence. At last, Artemis I could be heading to the moon. We want to make sure you can follow along live.
To be clear, this liftoff won’t have astronauts onboard — but there’s a lot riding on its success, including the prospect of landing people on the moon some time in the near future. (It’s currently planned for 2025).
Artemis I’s 32-story, tangerine-colored rocket commissioned for the big day will blast off from Earth and propel a pointy, relatively small, white spacecraft named Orion into lunar orbit.
Orion is filled to the brim with things like Amazon Alexa, TV character Shaun the Sheep, mannequins, miniature satellites and most importantly, tons of navigation and data collection equipment. These special instruments within Orion will track vital information about the spacecraft’s trajectory, safety, radiation absorption (and much more) that’ll essentially map out the routes of future missions — missions with a human crew like Artemis II and 2025’s Artemis III. In short, Artemis I is a crucial flight test and proof-of-principle mission.
A flawless launch next week could mark the beginning of NASA’s modern Apollo years. It’s going to be a tense day with a nail-biting countdown, but one shrouded in an air of wonder and excitement. In other words, it’s going to be huge.
NASA will host a live broadcast of the Artemis I event on Aug. 29 — the first on a list of three possible launch windows.
Time-wise, the launch window itself opens at 5:33 a.m. PT/8:33 a.m. ET, but it’ll stay open for two hours. Somewhere within that range, the agency’s mega moon rocket, which it calls the « most powerful rocket in the world, » will head toward the stars.
