KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, (United States): The four Artemis astronauts circling Earth were awaiting the green light from NASA on Thursday to head for the Moon and carry out the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years.
The enormous orange-and-white Space Launch System (SLS) rocket blasted off flawlessly from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday for the long-anticipated journey around the Moon.
The astronauts — Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Jeremy Hansen — spent their first hours in space performing checks and troubleshooting minor problems on their Orion capsule — including a communications issue and a malfunctioning toilet.
Before getting a few hours of sleep, they ignited the spacecraft’s main engine to place it in a high Earth orbit, the US space agency said.
NASA’s mission management team will meet later Thursday to perform an assessment of the spacecraft’s performance and decide whether to give the go-ahead for the astronauts to begin their three-day voyage toward the Moon.
The “go/no go” decision for the translunar injection burn (TLI) is scheduled for 7:07 pm Eastern Time (2307 GMT).
Assuming everything checks out, the TLI that will send the astronauts on their way is scheduled for 25 minutes later.
Orion is to loop around the Moon as part of the 10-day Artemis 2 mission aimed at paving the way for a Moon landing in 2028.
US President Donald Trump praised “our brave astronauts” at the top of his televised address on Wednesday evening on the war against Iran, calling the launch “quite something.”
Before their rest period, the astronauts performed various checks to ensure the reliability and safety of a spacecraft that has never carried humans before.
NASA said they carried out “proximity operations,” which tested how the Orion capsule can move relative to another spacecraft, and maneuvers that mimic what would be needed to dock with a lunar lander.
Among the issues they identified was a “controller issue with the toilet when they spun it up,” said Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator.
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