Was an uncrewed Moon-orbiting mission. As the first major spaceflight of NASA's Artemis program, Artemis 1 marked the agcy's return to lunar exploration after the conclusion of the Apollo program five decades earlier. It was the first integrated flight test of the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket,
In preparation for subsequt Artemis missions. These missions seek to reestablish a human presce on the Moon and demonstrate technologies and business approaches needed for future scitific studies, including exploration of Mars.
And on August 17, 2022, the fully stacked vehicle was rolled out for launch after a series of delays caused by difficulties in pre-flight testing. The first two launch attempts were canceled due to a faulty gine temperature reading on August 29, 2022, and a hydrog leak during fueling on September 3, 2022.
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After reaching Earth orbit, the upper stage carrying the Orion spacecraft separated and performed a trans-lunar injection before releasing Orion and deploying t CubeSat satellites. Orion completed one flyby of the Moon on November 21, tered a distant retrograde orbit for six days, and completed a second flyby of the Moon on December 5.
The Orion spacecraft th returned and retered the Earth's atmosphere with the protection of its heat shield, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11.
Which is scheduled to perform a crewed lunar flyby in 2024. After Artemis 2, Artemis 3 will involve a crewed lunar landing, the first in five decades since Apollo 17.
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The Block 1 vehicle consists of a core stage, two five-segmt solid rocket boosters (SRBs) and an upper stage. The core stage uses four RS-25D gines, all of which have previously flown on Space Shuttle missions. The core and boosters together produce 39, 000 kN (8, 800, 000 lb
), or about 4, 000 metric tons of thrust at liftoff. The upper stage, known as the Interim Cryogic Propulsion Stage (ICPS), is based on the Delta Cryogic Second Stage and is powered by a single RL10B-2 gine on the Artemis 1 mission.
Once in orbit, the ICPS fired its gine to perform a trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn, which placed the Orion spacecraft and 10 CubeSats on a trajectory to the Moon. Orion th separated from the ICPS and continued its coast into lunar space. Following Orion separation, the ICPS Stage Adapter deployed t CubeSats for conducting scitific research and performing technology demonstrations.
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Artemis 1 was outlined by NASA as Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) in 2012, at which point it was set to launch in 2017
As the first planned flight of the Space Launch System and the second uncrewed test flight of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. The initial plans for EM-1 called for a circumlunar trajectory during a sev-day mission.
In January 2013, it was announced that the Orion spacecraft's service module was to be built by the European Space Agcy and named the European Service Module.
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In January 2015, NASA and Lockheed Martin announced that the primary structure in the Orion spacecraft used on Artemis 1 would be up to 25% lighter compared to the previous one (EFT-1). This would be achieved by reducing the number of cone panels from six (EFT-1) to three (EM-1), reducing the total number of welds from 19 to 7
And saving the additional mass of the weld material. Other savings would be due to revising its various componts and wiring. For Artemis 1, the Orion spacecraft was to be outfitted with a complete life support system and crew seats but would be left uncrewed.
However, after a months-long feasibility study, NASA rejected the proposal, citing cost as the primary issue, and continued with the plan to fly the first SLS mission uncrewed.
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In March 2019, th-NASA administrator Jim Bridstine proposed moving the Orion spacecraft from SLS to commercial rockets, either the Falcon Heavy or Delta IV Heavy, to comply with the schedule.
The mission would require two launches: one to place the Orion spacecraft into orbit around the Earth, and a second carrying an upper stage. The two would th dock while in Earth orbit, and the upper stage would ignite to sd Orion to the Moon.
One challge with this option would be carrying out that docking, as Orion is not planned to carry a docking mechanism until Artemis 3.
Artemis 1 8x26
The core stage left the facility to undergo the Gre Run test series at Stnis Space Cter, consisting of eight tests of increasing complexity:
And subsequt Gre Run tests proceeded without issue. On January 16, 2021, a year later, the eighth and final test was performed, but the gines shut down after running for one minute.
This was caused by pressure in the hydraulic system used for the gines' thrust vector control system dropping below the limits set for the test. However, the limits were conservative – if such an anomaly occurred in launch, the rocket would still fly normally.
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SLS/Orion is assembled by stacking its major sub-assemblies atop a mobile launcher platform inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). First, the sev componts of each of the two boosters are stacked. The core stage is th stacked and is supported by the boosters. The interstage and upper stage are stacked atop the core, and the Orion spacecraft is th stacked onto the upper stage.
The Interim Cryogic Propulsion Stage was the first part of the SLS to be delivered to the Knedy Space Cter in July 2017.
Three years later, all of the SLS's solid rocket booster segmts were shipped by train to the Knedy Space Cter on June 12, 2020,
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The assembly of the SLS took place at the Vehicle Assembly Building's High Bay 3, beginning with the placemt of the two bottom solid rocket booster segmts onto Mobile Launcher-1 on November 23.
Assembly of the boosters was temporarily paused due to the core stage Gre Run test delays before being resumed on January 7, 2021,
The SLS core stage for the mission, CS-1, arrived at the launch site on the Pegasus barge on April 27, 2021, after the successful conclusion of Gre Run tests. It was moved to the VAB low bay for refurbishmt and stacking preparations on April 29.
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The stage was th stacked with its boosters on June 12. The stage adapter was stacked on the Core Stage on June 22. The ICPS upper stage was stacked on July 6. Following the completion of umbilical retract testing and integrated modal testing, the Orion stage adapter with t secondary payloads was stacked atop the upper stage on October 8.
The Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft began fueling and pre-launch servicing in the Multi-Payload Processing Facility on January 16, 2021, following a handover to NASA Exploration Ground Systems (EGS).
On October 20, the Orion spacecraft, capsulated under the launch abort system and aerodynamic cover, was rolled over to the VAB and stacked atop the SLS rocket, finishing the stacking of the Artemis 1 vehicle in High Bay 3.
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During a period of extsive integrated testing and checkouts, one of the four RS-25 gine controllers failed, requiring a replacemt and delaying the first rollout of the rocket.
On March 17, 2022, Artemis 1 rolled out of High Bay 3 from the Vehicle Assembly Building for the first time to perform a pre-launch wet dress rehearsal (WDR). The initial WDR attempt, on April 3, was scrubbed due to a mobile launcher pressurization problem.
A second attempt to complete the test was scrubbed on April 4, after problems with supplying gaseous nitrog to the launch complex, liquid oxyg temperatures, and a vt valve stuck in a closed position.
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During preparations for a third attempt, a helium check valve on the ICPS upper stage was kept in a semi-op position by a small piece of rubber originating from one of the mobile launcher's umbilical arms, forcing test conductors to delay fueling the stage until the valve could be replaced in the VAB.
The third attempt to finish the test did not include fueling the upper stage. The rocket's liquid oxyg tank started loading successfully. However, during the loading of liquid hydrog on the core stage, a leak was discovered on the tail service mast umbilical plate, located on the mobile launcher at the base of the rocket, forcing another early d to the test.
NASA elected to roll the vehicle back to the VAB to repair the hydrog leak and the ICPS helium check valve while upgrading the nitrog supply at LC-39B after prolonged outages on the three previous wet dress rehearsals. Artemis 1 was rolled back to the VAB on April 26.
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After the repairs and upgrades were complete the Artemis 1 vehicle rolled out to LC-39B for a second time on June 6 to complete the test.
During the fourth wet dress rehearsal attempt on June 20, the rocket was fully loaded with propellant on both stages. Still, due to a hydrog leak on the quick-disconnect connection of the tail service mast umbilical, the countdown could not reach the planned T-9.3 seconds mark and was stopped automatically at T-29 seconds. NASA mission managers soon determined they had completed almost all planned test objectives and declared the WDR campaign complete.
On July 2, the Artemis 1 stack was rolled back to the VAB for final
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