Watch NASA SLS's First Launch with a Moon-Orbiting Capsule Named 'Orion'

A two-hour launch window just opened for the very first launch of NASA's "Space Launch System" to propel an uncrewed capsule into orbit around the moon. Coverage is streaming now on NASA's website, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, and in 4K on NASA's UHD channel, according to a recent announcement:A live broadcast of the launch also will include celebrity appearances by Jack Black, Chris Evans, and Keke Palmer, as well as a special performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Josh Groban and Herbie Hancock. It also will feature a performance of "America the Beautiful" by The Philadelphia Orchestra and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin. It's all to celebrate the launch of a massive rocket that will blast an uncrewed capsule named Orion into orbit around the moon to "pave the way for a [later] crewed flight test and future human lunar exploration," according to NASA. The mission - designated Artemis I - will "demonstrate the performance of the SLS rocket and test Orion's capabilities over the course of about six weeks as it travels about 40,000 miles beyond the Moon and back to Earth." Vox notes it's "the farthest a vehicle designed for human astronauts has ever traveled into space.... Orion will travel past the moon, and then thousands of miles beyond it, before turning around and heading back to Earth - a 1.3 million-mile journey (2.1 million kilometers) that will last 42 days." And then a human crew will make a similar flight in 2024, followed by a lunar landing sometime in 2025. So what's in the capsule? Three life-sized mannequins (built with 38 slices of plastic to simulate human tissue), along with 5,600 other sensors and an additional 34 radiation detectors.A version of Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, which has been downloaded onto an iPad, is hitching a ride, too. NASA is testing Callisto, a virtual AI that Amazon, Cisco, and Lockheed Martin designed to communicate with astronauts. While the tech might sound a little like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the engineers say the system is meant to provide assistance and companionship. "Callisto is a standalone payload onboard the Orion spacecraft, and it does not have any control over flight control or other mission-critical systems," says Justin Nikolaus, a lead Alexa experience designer at Amazon. Other aspects of Artemis I's payload are more sentimental. A plush doll version of the Shaun the Sheep character from the Wallace and Gromit franchise will travel on Orion. So will a Snoopy doll outfitted in an astronaut costume, along with a pen nib that Charles M. Schultz used to draw the Peanuts series, wrapped in a comic strip. Momentos from the Apollo 11 mission, which landed the first humans on the lunar surface in the 1960s, are also going, including a tiny sample of moon dust and a piece of an engine. There's been a lot of anticipation. "A series of lightning strikes hit lightning towers near the launch pad five times on Saturday," NBC News reported, but "NASA says none of them caused any damage to the rocket." And just hours ago, shortly before midnight, NASA began fueling the rocket - pumping 730,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen into its 212-foot core rocket stage, the largest ever made by NASA - and then pumping even more fuel into its "interim cryogenic propulsion stage." Sunday night NBC News had this report on the mission. "NASA says there's an 80% chance of 'go' based on the weather [forecasted for Monday morning]. But if it doesn't go then, the weather starts to deteriorate, and the launch may be in trouble." It's been more than a half century since the last humans walked on the moon in 1972. Just before re-entering the module, NASA astronaut Eugene "Gene" Cernan broadcast these words to earth from the moon: "we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind." And recently NASA's Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development added these words to their profile on Twitter. "We go to the Moon for scientific discovery and to prepare for our first steps on Mars."

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