Dr. Rick Gilbrech, Director, NASA Stennis Space Center, says splashdown and recovery of NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11 concluded a successful Artemis I maiden mission and set the stage for the agency to move ahead in its effort to explore the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all.
The Artemis I test flight is the first in a series of increasingly complex missions paving the way for humans to return to the Moon and eventually travel to Mars. He said the return of Orion was particularly momentous for everyone at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, and even more so for one of their employees on the recovery ship to operate a camera system tracking the capsule from re-entry all the way to splashdown.
Gilbrech said as the nation’s largest propulsion test center, NASA Stennis has a long history of frontline work to help power the U.S. human space exploration program. The site initially was built to test rocket stages that launched the first humans to the Moon in 1969 during the Apollo Program.
In like fashion, the center tested the RS-25 engines and Space Launch System (SLS) core stage that sent the Orion spacecraft on its recent trip around the Moon. SLS is the most powerful rocket ever assembled and the only one capable of sending Orion, astronauts, and cargo directly to the Moon on a single mission. It is powered by two solid rocket boosters and a core stage with four RS-25 engines. RS-25 engines for the first four SLS missions are former space shuttle main engines modified to provide additional power.
NASA Stennis conducted several series of hot fire tests to help guide modification of the engines and validate the various changes.
The nation now is set to return humans, including the first woman and the first person of color, to the Moon and to prepare for journeys to Mars. Both are daunting missions, with the Moon more than 235,000 miles away from Earth and Mars, on average, some 140 million miles.
Gilbrech concluded saying with the Dec. 11 splashdown of Orion and the continued contributions of the dedicated NASA Stennis team, he has never felt more optimistic that both are within their reach.
For information about NASA Stennis Space Center, visit: www.nasa.gov/centers/stennis/.
