The TAGSAM head was on the end of a robotic arm that collected rocks and dust from asteroid Bennu's surface on October 20, 2020. The clean room includes custom glove boxes built to fit the sample canister containing the TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) head inside. The team will spend the next few weeks in the clean room at Johnson built exclusively for Bennu samples. From there, it was transferred to NASA Johnson. Air Force C-17 aircraft, which landed at Ellington Field. When AFP visited the facility, engineers and divers were testing how to pull a cart on the Moon.The sample arrived in Houston at 12:40 pm ET (11:40 am CT) aboard a U.S. But the Artemis program has infused the lab with new urgency. "The heyday of this facility was when we were still flying the space shuttle and we were assembling the space station," explained the lab's office chief John Haas.Īt that time, 400 training sessions with astronauts in full spacesuits took place every year, as compared with about 150 today. The latter group will wear the new spacesuits made by NASA for Artemis missions. Six have already done training and six more will do so by the end of September. To train for eventual voyages to the Moon, simulations must replicate the Moon's one-sixth gravity.įrom a room above the pool, the astronauts are guided remotely-with the four-second communications delay they will experience on the lunar surface. In the water, astronauts can experience a sensation that approaches weightlessness. "It's all very new for us and very much in development." We just got that large rock in two weeks ago," said the lab's deputy chief Lisa Shore. "It's only been in the last few months that we started to put the sand on the bottom of the pool. On the other, the lunar environment is gradually being recreated at the bottom of the pool, with giant model rocks made by a company specializing in aquarium decorations. NASA's giant astronaut training pool contains a replica of the International Space Station - and a simulated lunar surface. On one side of the so-called Neutral Buoyancy Lab is a mockup of the International Space Station, submerged. In the middle of the giant astronaut training tank-the world's largest indoor swimming pool at more than 200 feet long, 100 feet wide and 40 feet deep-a black curtain has been erected. But I'll work hard to keep focused," Perry, who worked on numerous space shuttle flights over the years, told AFP, tapping his chest.īeyond upgrades to Mission Control for the mission, the entire Johnson Space Center is a bit over the Moon about Artemis. "I can tell you, my heart is going to be tum tum, tum tum. "This is a whole new deal-a whole new rocket, a whole new spacecraft, a whole new control center," explained Brian Perry, the flight dynamics officer, who will be in charge of Orion's trajectory immediately following the launch. Teams have been rehearsing for this moment for three years. The center has been renovated and updated for the occasion. Mission Control is an iconic part of NASA's history.įor the duration of Artemis 1, a team of about a dozen NASA personnel will remain in Mission Control 24 hours a day. The spacecraft will remain in space for 42 days before returning to Earth.įrom 2024, astronauts will travel aboard Orion for the same trip, and the following year, at the earliest, Americans will once again step foot on the Moon. It will propel the Orion crew capsule into orbit around the Moon. I won't be able to sleep too much, I'm sure of that," he said, in front of Mission Control's iconic giant bank of screens.Īrtemis 1, an uncrewed test flight, will feature the first blastoff of the massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which will be the most powerful in the world when it goes into operation. The 60-year-old confided to AFP that the eve of the launch is likely to be a long night of anticipation-and little rest. "This is more exciting than really anything I've ever been a part of," LaBrode told journalists at the US space agency's Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas. LaBrode is the lead flight director for Artemis 1, set to take off later this month-the first time a capsule that can carry humans will be sent to the Moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972.
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