Employees at Nasa are over the moon as Artemis 1 launch nears

HOUSTON • Mr Rick LaBrode has worked at Nasa for 37 years, but he says the American quest to return to the Moon is by far the crowning moment of his career.

Mr 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.

The launch is expected to take place on Aug 29, with tentative back-up dates of Sept 2 and Sept 5, according to Florida Today.

"This is more exciting than really anything I've ever been a part of," Mr LaBrode told journalists at the US space agency's Mission Control Centre in Houston, Texas.

The 60-year-old confided that the eve of the launch is likely to be a long night of anticipation - and little rest. "I'm going to be so excited," he said in front of Mission Control's iconic giant bank of screens. "I won't be able to sleep too much, I'm sure of that."

Artemis 1, an uncrewed test flight, will include the first blast-off of the massive Space Launch System rocket, which will be the most powerful in the world when it goes into operation.

It will propel the Orion crew capsule into orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft will remain in space for 42 days before returning to Earth.

From 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.

For the duration of Artemis 1, a team of about a dozen Nasa personnel will remain in Mission Control 24 hours a day. The centre has been renovated and updated for the occasion.

Teams have been rehearsing for this moment for three years.

"This is a whole new deal - a whole new rocket, a whole new spacecraft, a whole new control centre," said Mr Brian Perry, the flight dynamics officer, who will be in charge of Orion's trajectory immediately following the launch. "I can tell you, my heart is going to be tum tum, tum tum. But I'll work hard to keep focused," said Mr Perry, who worked on numerous space shuttle flights over the years.

Beyond upgrades to Mission Control for the mission, the entire Johnson Space Centre is a bit over the moon about Artemis.

In the middle of the giant astronaut training tank - the world's largest indoor swimming pool at 62m long, 31m wide and 12m deep - a black curtain has been erected.

On one side of the neutral buoyancy lab is a submerged mock-up of the International Space Station. On the other, the lunar environment is being recreated at the bottom of the pool, with giant model rocks made by a company specialising in aquarium decorations.

"It's only been in the last few months that we started to put the sand on the bottom of the pool," said the lab's deputy chief, Ms Lisa Shore. "We just got that large rock in two weeks ago. It's all very new for us and very much in development."

In the water, astronauts can experience a sensation that approaches weightlessness. To train for eventual voyages to the Moon, simulations must replicate its one-sixth gravity.

From a room above the pool, the astronauts are guided remotely - with the four-second communications delay they will experience on the lunar surface.

Six have already done training and six more will do so by the end of September. The latter group will wear the new spacesuits made by Nasa for Artemis missions. When journalists visited the facility, engineers and divers were testing how to pull a cart on the Moon.

Each session in the pool can last up to six hours.

"It's like running a marathon twice, but on your hands," said astronaut Victor Glover.

Ms Debbie Korth, deputy manager of the Orion programme, has worked on Orion for more than a decade. She said everyone in Houston is excited for the return to the Moon and for Nasa's future.

"Definitely, I feel like it is like a new golden age," she said.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE