Page 13 - Crew Capsule News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Moon. our sights are set clearly on mars. >> reporter: but first, it has to pass this uncrewed test flight with only mannequins on board. artemis won the launch in florida and mission control is at the johnson space center in houston, texas. >> this is apollo control, houston. >> reporter: the same place that controlled every apollo and shuttle mission. >> this is where it happens as far as human space flight. >> reporter: rick is in charge of it all as lead flight director. they have been training in this room for this moment for over three years. >> when flight day comes, it's a whole differ...

He and his team have been training for this for years. >> flight day is when it really gets real. >> reporter: after launch the sls rocket will separate from the orion crew capsule on top. orion will fly a quarter million miles to the moon and then go 40,000 miles beyond it. farther than any spacecraft designed to carry humans has ever flown. >> we're going to swing by the moon and when we swing by it on the way there, we'll be 60 miles off the surface. it will be incredible. the pictures we get as we go by are going to be really impressive. >> reporter: after orbiting the moon for two weeks, ...

And 50 years, and artemis is different. flanked with two boosters, it will be 15% more powerful than the monster saturn five rocket that carried apollo astronauts to the moon. this morning, all systems are a go for a monday morning launch, and an uncrewed 40-day test flight to orbit the moon. >> we are pushing the vehicle to its limits, really stressing it, to get ready for crew. >> we mitigate the risk as far as we can, now it is time to get to launch, so we get that data that we need to put crew on it. >> within two years, astronauts will ride on top of the rocket in the around crew capsule....

For crew. we have mitigated the risk as far as we can and now it's our time to get to launch so that we get that data that we need to put crew on it. >> reporter: within two years, astronauts will ride on top of the rocket in the orion crew capsule. the entire artemis/orion stack looks something like apollo on steroids, with some critical upgrades for future astronauts. orion is a lot bigger than apollo. instead of three astronauts, four astronauts fit in these chairs here. they have a retractable rowing machine right here for exercise, and something apollo didn't have. underneath my feet, a c...

Its colossal size means it's really heavy, so it needs lots of power. it has four engines, but even those aren't enough to get this rocket off the ground, so what it also needs are these two huge boosters. they all use fuel, and the biggest part, called the core stage, is full of fuel. in fact, fuel makes up 90% of the weight of this entire rocket. now, you might be wondering where the astronauts will go. well, it's here, near the top, in the orion crew capsule. but not this time. this is a test flight, so there are no people on board. the time has come to put the space launch system to the te...