Artemis-2 Moon Mission: Two-day countdown to start early Tuesday

The next scheduled launch date for the first manned moon mission in over half a century is approaching. NASA has now made public how the countdown for Artemis-2 is supposed to proceed. According to the plan, it will start 49 hours and 50 minutes before the scheduled launch with the arrival of the teams at their workplace. Ten minutes later, the countdown is supposed to start. If nothing gets in the way by then, it would happen on Monday at 10:44 PM Central European Summer Time (CEST), because the first launch window opens at 00:24 AM CEST on Thursday. On site in Florida, that would be shortly before sunset on Wednesday evening. There are 120 minutes available for the launch. If it doesn't work out then, there will be slightly later launch windows on the following days further launch windows.

Kick-off for numerous manned moon flights

With Artemis-2, NASA wants to send humans to the moon again for the first time since 1972 (Apollo 17). They are supposed to orbit it, but not land there. The launch was actually planned for February 6th after years of delays, but further postponements occurred. The crew of the moon capsule consists of Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch from NASA, as well as the Canadian Jeremy Hansen. On their ten-day flight, they are first supposed to orbit the Earth and then accelerate towards the Earth's moon. Four days are allocated for the flight, and the mission is expected to last a little over nine days in total. Artemis-2 is considered an important intermediate step on the way to further manned moon missions. There, the US space agency wants to even establish a permanent base.

When the almost 50-hour countdown starts early Tuesday morning, various preparations must begin. It will become particularly exciting about 11 hours before the planned launch when the SLS (Space Launch System) moon rocket is refueled. This has been tested several times, with problems occurring each time. If everything works this time, the crew should enter their space capsule four hours before launch and take their seats. During all these procedures, the countdown can be paused for varying lengths of time without having to be automatically reset afterwards. Details are available from NASA. They will stream the event live on the internet and explain it. heise online will also report live.

If everything goes well this time and the moon rocket launches on its historic mission, it can be followed live on the internet afterwards. NASA has reactivated its website AROW (Artemis Real-time Orbit Website) again, which was already used for Artemis-1. Based on real telemetry data, you can see, for example, where the space capsule is located. In addition, there are other real-time data, such as mission duration, current speed, and distance traveled. It can also be viewed on mobile in the NASA app, adds the US space agency. Tracking data should also be available live for retrieval, so that you can fill your own applications, for example.

(mho)