NASA launched the gigantic Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket in history, carrying the Orion spacecraft on November 16
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, said last week that its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket performed “exceptionally” during the Artemis I mission. Following the success of the uncrewed mission, engineers at NASA are now evaluating the Moon rocket’s debut performance to prepare for the crewed Artemis missions.
“The correlation between actual flight performance and predicted performance for Artemis I was excellent,” said John Honeycutt, SLS Program manager. “There is engineering and an art to successfully building and launching a rocket, and the analysis on the SLS rocket’s inaugural flight puts NASA and its partners in a good position to power missions for Artemis II and beyond.”
The U.S. space agency added that its engineers in the SLS Engineering and Support Center collected more than four terabytes of data and onboard imagery from SLS during the pre-launch and launch phases. Additionally, the ground cameras, cameras on the rocket, and aerial cameras that were focused on SLS alone collected around 31 terabytes of imagery data.
Moreover, cameras and sensors further helped the teams monitor how the mega-rocket performed during its in-space maneuvers. Engineers at the space agency also monitored the extreme temperatures and sounds that the SLS rocket experienced just after liftoff. NASA pointed out that the data collected from the Artemis I mission would be critical in building confidence to send humans to Moon.
The U.S. space agency launched the gigantic Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket in history, carrying the Orion spacecraft on November 16 from the Launch Complex 39B of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA concluded its unmanned test mission – Artemis I after its Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific on December 11.
With a motley crew of mannequins and biological experiments in the Artemis 1 mission, the U.S. wants to build a sustained human presence on the Earth’s only natural satellite, which should see the touchdown of the first woman and first person of color in the coming few years via future Artemis missions.
