UPDATE: Artemis launch scrubbed for today, the next possible launch window is this coming Friday. Issues with a temperature reading on one engine prevented the planned launch today.
Today was set to be a big day for the NASA Michoud assembly facility and Stennis Space Center, as well as the entire space agency. It is the planned launch of the Artemis I mission, the first in the program that will bring us back to the moon.
Today's launch was supposed to be uncrewed, but the Orion crew capsule -- built in New Orleans -- will carry test dummies that will gather vital data for NASA.
"We're testing out radiation on them as well as the vibration environments," said astronaut Raja Chari. "The way we get the data on whether it's safe...is using these crash-test dummies that are really highly instrumented."
Chari told WWL-TV that the Orion capsule will take a wide orbit around the moon, to get a sample of the kind of radiation astronauts have not had to deal with while in low Earth orbit on the International Space Station.
"The Orion capsule is going to go further than any capsule built for humans has ever gone before," Chari explained, "as it goes beyond the moon to test out the radiation environment and test the heat shield when it comes back.
The Orion capsule sits atop the massive Space Launch System rocket, the core stage of which was also built here in New Orleans. How does it compare to America's last manned moon rocket, the Saturn V?
"By all accounts, the most massive rockets we've built," Chari said. "The block one is shorter than the Saturn V, but it has more thrust than the Saturn V, and the next version is actually even taller than the Saturn V."
The four main engines were tested in Mississippi at the Stennis Space Center. NASA’s two-hour launch window starts at 7:33 a.m. Central Daylight Time.
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