About a month ago, the US was supposed to officially return to the moon with the expected takeoff of the Artemis 1 mission for a 37-day journey of over two million kilometers. The mission, which includes the Orion spacecraft as well as an Israeli medical experiment in the form of a vest to protect against cosmic radiation, was supposed to set off at the end of August to circle the moon, penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere and drop into the sea near San Diego on October 11.
However, the mission has since been canceled due to a series of technical malfunctions, fuel leaks and problematic weather conditions, and this week the spacecraft ends when it is driven back to the maintenance hangar to protect it from the hurricane approaching the coast of Florida, Ian. A new launch date has not been set, but NASA is not ruling out the coming Saturday and Sunday as alternative dates. If Artemis is not launched by next Wednesday, October 5, she will miss the next window of opportunity and will have to wait until the second half of November.
What is the reason for the delay?
The Artemis mission consists of two main parts: a large launch rocket called SLS (short for Space Launch System) which is 70 meters high, and a spacecraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin called Orion. On the original launch day of the mission, August 29, a number of faults related to the launch rocket were discovered, including a sensor that showed a temperature that was too high for one of the four engines and a crack in the foam that insulates the connection between the fuel tanks. The launch was postponed to Saturday of the same week, September 3rd, but even then a hydrogen leak caused by high pressure in the fuel line was discovered.
In recent weeks, NASA engineers have repaired the leak, with the next launch window set for next Tuesday, but Hurricane Ian, approaching the coast of Florida from the Caribbean, forced NASA to postpone the launch again and drive the spacecraft to its maintenance hangar in order to protect it from the storm and replace the batteries.
This did not prevent SpaceX from last night (Sunday) launching the Falcon 9 rocket on board 52 Starlink satellites into space, with the aim of deploying the wireless internet service in the skies of Antarctica. The window of opportunity for an Artemis launch, however, is narrower and depends on the proximity of the moon to the launch site.
Due to weather predictions related to Hurricane Ian, @NASA teams will roll the #Artemis I @NASA_SLS rocket and @NASA_Orion spacecraft back to the Vehicle Assembly Building at @NASAKennedy.
First motion is targeted for 11 pm ET tonight: https://t.co/Bx7oanmpa4 pic.twitter.com/wwPds84R36
— NASA Artemis (@NASAArtemis) September 26, 2022
Is this unusual?
Delays in space launches are commonplace. In NASA’s space shuttle program, for example, the average number of delays before each launch was 2.5, with the reasons usually related to one of two reasons: weather conditions or fuel leaks. The last launch of the shuttle Columbia with the late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon on board was postponed for about three years for various reasons.
Why do they actually take so long?
Unlike SpaceX’s launch rockets, the Falcon 9, which were famous for being reusable, NASA’s SLS rocket is designed for single use, and is therefore also a more expensive launch. Its outdated design based on the launch rocket of the space shuttle program dictated a rather high cost – 4.6 billion dollars for the Artemis launch alone. The next launches are also expected to be expensive, with the total expenses for the next two missions of Artemis expected to be 12 billion dollars. “Unlike SpaceX’s Falcon launcher, which can be used for a variety of applications such as carrying satellites, spacecraft or various types of commercial cargo, the SLS’s fuel tank can be used once and for one purpose, which is also the reason why its launch cost is ten times higher than that of SpaceX’s The corporate culture is not afraid of failure for the sake of trial and error,” Ran Levana, until recently the CEO of the Ramon Foundation and currently a consultant for the Image company, tells Globes.
“The design of the SLS is a kind of compromise between the budget constraints on the part of Congress and the needs of NASA, so it is not considered innovative nowadays. In fact, it borrows a great deal from the original design of the rocket of the shuttle program that was canceled in 2011,’ says Levana. “NASA does not want to take unnecessary risks, and even though the flight is unmanned, a malfunction during the launch will do great damage to its reputation and the space program that should lead to the construction of American facilities on the moon.”
What does the Israeli angle include in the mission?
After the long-awaited launch, the Israeli Space Agency and its German counterpart will conduct an experiment with an Israeli-made vest that protects against cosmic radiation. The experiment will be conducted by measuring the effect of cosmic radiation on a humanoid doll dressed in the Israeli vest (“Zohar”) and comparing it to a doll without such a vest (“Helga”). The protective vest is designed to stay on the moon where the measured radiation level is 200 times greater than on Earth. It will also be suitable for staying on the surface of Mars, where the average radiation level is 50 times that on Earth. High exposure to cosmic radiation significantly increases the chance of getting cancer. On Earth it is infinitely lower than that measured on the surface of the other planets in the solar system due to the protection provided by the atmosphere and the magnetic field.
The Israeli vest is considered the leader today in NASA among a number of alternatives as such that filters cosmic radiation, and has an untapped potential to become the official vest of the space agency in future manned missions. According to its designers, its uniqueness stems not only from the radiation filtering, but also from the comfort and ergonomic structure it offers in relation to the equipment available to astronauts today.
The protective vest was developed by the start-up StemRad of the entrepreneurs Oren Milstein and Daniel Levit, originally for security use: it was designed to allow security, rescue and rescue forces the possibility to operate in nuclear reactors while reducing exposure to radiation. According to the research firm IVC, Stemmed has raised $6 million from investors such as the Wonka Foundation, Bruce Zweibel and Jeff Winick, and its scientific advisory team includes Nobel Prize winners in chemistry such as Aaron Czahnover, Michael Levitt and Roger David Korenberg.
In addition to the Israeli and German experiment, the American space agency will also conduct an experiment on the effects of cosmic radiation with its own dummy (“Commander Monkin Campus”). These are not the only dolls that will inhabit Orion – the famous Snoopy doll from Charles Schulz’s comic book will also be launched aboard the spaceship in order to give viewers of the spaceship broadcasts the feeling of weightlessness upon leaving the Earth’s atmosphere.
What is Mission Artemis?
NASA’s Artemis is a four-phase mission whose ultimate goal is to enable the US National Space Agency to land a man on the Moon, with the vision of eventually enabling additional missions to land astronauts on Mars. The goal of the current mission is to orbit the moon. The Artemis 2 mission scheduled to launch in 2024 will be a manned flight to the lunar orbit, while the one after it, Artemis 3 planned for 2025, is expected to land an American astronaut on the moon for the first time since the 1970s. The last time US citizens walked on the moon, it was Eugene Cernan and Howard Schmidt, pilots of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
SpaceX also intends to reach Mars. What is the difference between her plan and that of NASA?
NASA announced that it intends to land a man on Mars by 2040. SpaceX, on the other hand, announced that they intend to catch up with NASA in at least a decade. Its flagship for this journey is the “Starship”, a huge reusable spaceship that also includes the “Super Heavy” launcher, currently being built in Texas. It is currently in the initial testing phase and has yet to make a full orbit of the Earth, or a substantial maneuver in space.
Starship is SpaceX’s equivalent of NASA’s Orion – which is currently not planned to fly to Mars but to land on the moon in the Artemis 3 mission. However, a presidential order directed NASA to land humans on Mars by 2033. Only after three successful Artemis missions, Including an astronaut landing on the moon, it would be possible to talk about a national American mission to Mars.