Good evening, everybody. Welcome to headquarters of the Canadian Space Agency.
Good evening or good day, good morning, and welcome to the Canadian Space Agency.
Our team has one mission: to the Moon.
There's been several launch attempts in the last couple of weeks,
but it looks like today's the day.
So my name is David Saint-Jacques and I'm an astronaut.
And I'm Kumi Jinadasa, I'm an engineer here at the Canadian Space Agency.
Today we have the pleasure of being here for the Artemis I launch,
the first in a series in the Artemis program.
Before we begin we would like to acknowledge
that this event is taking place in St. Hubert in Quebec
on a traditional and unceded territory of the Mohawk Nation.
and for all of you joining us from virtual platform we invite you to take a moment to think
about the lands that you're from and the importance of the lands we each call home.
So now we're tuning into NASA TV live.
And while we wait for the T minus 15 second countdown to begin,
David and I will share with you a few facts of the Artemis, about the Artemis mission.
So the mission will last about 25 days, 26 days,
and Orion will stay around the Moon for approximately six days.
It will travel 65,000 kilometres further than the Moon,
which is further than any other spacecraft
rated for human has ever gone before.
It will have two fly-bys at about 100 kilometres above the lunar surface,
and upon its return it will separate from the service module
and splash down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11th,
and during this entire flight plan Orion will travel over 2 million kilometres,
which is plenty of time to check out all the systems
and gather telemetry from all those complex systems.
So we're now about two and a half minutes from launch,
we're going to – the rocket we're looking at is the Space Launch System, this rocket here.
This is the basic configuration,
it's about the same height as the Parliament tower in Ottawa, about 100 metres.
You’ve got engines that are the same as Space Shuttle engines,
and this giant orange section is essentially fuel
but this fuel is liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
So when you see the giant white plume behind the rocket,
that exhaust fume is actually just water vapour.
And the two rockets on the side, maybe they’re reminiscent of Space Shuttle rocket boosters,
they're basically devolved from that, and they provide 75% of the thrust in the beginning,
they're like giant fireworks: you can’t stop them once – once they're lit.
And the little rocket on top is the Launch Abort System,
that's like the ejection seat.
If there's any problem, this will pull the capsule away from the rocket.
And this little rocket accelerates to 800 kilometres an hour in about two seconds.
We are one minute away from launch.
What can I tell you about the Orion spacecraft?
You're going to see main thing about it, it's – that it's – it can –
we're testing during this mission the heat shield basically,
because coming back from the Moon will require surviving the intense heat of re-entry.
When we come back we're travelling at approximately 11 kilometres per second.
We can't test this on Earth or in a lab; we're going to test it here during the mission
to see if for the next mission with astronauts on board if it's safe,
that is one of the most important tests that we're doing during this mission.
We're approximately 30 seconds away from launch.
One thing to mention is that the Artemis I mission is actually a test flight,
so there is no crew onboard
and as David mentioned, that's what we're doing,
we're testing all these different components of the SLS, the Space Launch System rocket,
SLS, and the Orion capsule.
So we're at L minus 15, there we go.
Initiate seven, six, five, four stage engine start, three, two, one,
boosters in ignition, and liftoff of Artemis I.
We rise together back to the Moon and beyond.
All four RS-25 engines on the core stage and two solid rocket boosters
now propelling the vehicle at 128 miles per hour.
Hearing good control on the roll from teams in Mission Control Houston all good calls so far,
now 30 seconds into the flight of Artemis I.
First milestone will be for the vehicle to pass through max q
at about one minute and nine seconds into launch.
This is the greatest period of atmospheric force on the rocket.
SLS now travelling 607 miles per hour.
You’re looking at 8.8 million pounds of maximum thrust quiet here in (inaudible)
in Mission Control.
Four core stage engines are throttling down and passing through max q.
Now one minute 21 seconds into the flight travelling at 1,420 miles per hour.
The four core stage engines are back at maximum thrust.
The next major milestone will be for the solid rocket boosters to cut off and jettison
about two minutes and 11 seconds into the flight,
so about 30 seconds from now.
Again quiet here in Mission Control Houston as teams continue monitoring the flight of Artemis I.
We're now 16 miles downrange from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center
travelling over 2,800 miles per hour.
Standing by for solid rocket booster jettison and shortly thereafter.
These 177 foot boosters.
Now the core stage continues to power the flight of Orion, all four RS-25 engines
firing travelling over 3,400 miles per hour 46 miles downrange.
Two minutes and 36 seconds into the flight.
Hearing nominal calls here in Mission Control Houston.
We've still got four good engines on the core stage.
Next up we’ll be looking for the service module faring to separate,
this is three 15 by 15 foot faring panels providing structural support
protecting the service module,
those will separate about three minutes and 11 seconds into flight and very shortly thereafter
will be followed by the Launch Abort System separation.
Just over three minutes into the flight of Artemis I now travelling over 4,060 miles per hour
83 miles downrange.
We just had confirmation that the service module faring has separated,
and that the Launch Abort System pyros have fired, separating those from Orion as well.
For future crewmembers…
We've just heard the call for three engine press,
meaning if SLS were to lose an engine at this point in the mission
we could still achieve a nominal mission
we would just have an extended main engine cut-off time;
however we still have four good engines all at maximum thrust right now
powering the first flight of Artemis at 5,200 miles per hour 148 miles downrange.
We're four minutes and 16 seconds into the flight of Artemis I.
So far we've had a clean ascent.
We saw those solid rocket boosters jettison about two minutes and 11 seconds
after liftoff shortly after we had the service module panels faring separate
as well as the Launch Abort System.
The Launch Abort System was inert for this flight except to perform this separation.
Those four core stage engines will continue to fire
and power the flight of Artemis I now travelling
over 6,800 miles per hour 229 miles downrange.
Booster flight controller reports that the engines are looking good.
Our core stage main engine cut-off time is about eight minutes…
So now we will talk with our junior astronauts.
Before main engine, well not even five minutes now,
we have three minutes before main engine cut-off and separation,
and that's when we're really going to get a confirmation of a successful launch.
The word “Miko” (ph) we hear all the time
and that's around, like I said, it's about three minutes now.
In the meantime we're going to talk to our junior astronauts,
Rosalie, Ariane and Julien.
They were part of a group of 52 students from across Canada,
I'll invite them to come on on the stage now.
They were a group of 52 students from across Canada
who were selected to participate in this summer's Canadian Space Agency
Junior Astronaut Camp.
So we have a couple of questions for our junior astronauts today.
Julien, for you, what do you think about the launch?
Well, I was really surprised by the launch;
I was full of emotions.
We've been waiting for this moment for so long,
and I hope that things will go well,
but we'll cross our fingers and hope that it works out well.
But I thought it was extremely stressful.
We're waiting at eight minutes for the confirmation of the successful launch.
Ariane, I remember during the process to become a junior astronaut
you said that you were, you wanted to go in space
and perhaps become an astrophysicist or perhaps an astronaut.
What fascinates you about space?
Well, what fascinates me is mainly the composition of planets
to know how – what they're made of,
and thanks to Artemis and Gateway that will follow, we’ll be able to –
we’ll know more about the mass and we’ll have access to more information.
Rosalie, a question for you.
If you could travel to Mars or to the Moon, which would you choose?
I would go to Mars because Mars has always fascinated me, the planet.
And I would – well it's like a dream to go to Mars.
So even if the Artemis mission is of interest to me,
not necessarily to go to the Moon,
but the Moon can be a springboard to get to Mars. So I would say Mars.
So we'll do a quick exercise to better understand
what we're talking about when we say that we're going to the Moon
and we dream about going to Mars.
Look at this. Who wants to be the Earth? If this is the Earth, it's a basketball.
Who's a Moon? Me? And who is Mars?
I am. Okay, take this. So here's Earth, Mars and the Moon.
So you stay here, you're the Earth,
the Moon will take 10 steps, that's where the Moon is.
The Space Station where it was is here,
one centimetre away from the ball.
Mars, walk for an hour, that's where Mars is.
So that's okay, you don't have to go.
We talked through Miko, we have a successful launch.
A successful launch.
Artemis I launch, our first step towards our next adventure into deep space.
As Leah said, I'm NASA's Megan Cruz and this is NASA astronaut Kayla Barron,
and I'm kind of still giddy and speechless.
I don't even know how to explain how I'm feeling right now.
I feel the same way. This is the first launch that I've been able to watch in person.
And I've got to say, it was incredible.
I was just – it took my breath away and I was tearing up,
just what an amazing accomplishment for this team, this international team of people
who have been dedicating their careers to getting this rocket off the ground
and taking the first step to getting a crew on that vehicle back to the Moon.
It was just incredible.
Yeah, this is a moment I think that we're all going to remember where
we were when we saw this sort of thing. You know what I mean?
And it was great to see again when we entered into terminal count everybody
here just started cheering, you know coming out to get a really good view.
And boy I mean it lit up the night sky,
and it just shook everything around us.
Did you feel that? Like in my bones I felt that.
Oh yeah, the – I mean the cool thing is now (crosstalk)
kind of the delay between what you see and what you hear,
because of course the sound travels a little bit slower.
So now that we have the confirmation of the successful launch –
we’ll just wait until that, thank you very much.
We have a confirmation of successful launch,
and that was when that main engine stage separated
and now Orion is on its own in a sense.
It's going to over the next few hours use that upper stage
to give two more big pushes, one to ensure that Orion
is within Earth's orbit and then another one to set Orion on a course to the Moon.
To the Moon.
What an incredible moment.
It's just unbelievable. And…
Oh, thank you to our junior astronauts.
I need the balls back now.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you.
So this concludes tonight's event.
Thank you, everybody, for being here
and this is I think the first step of a long adventure.
Like I was part of the Apollo generation like so many people,
and I think we're seeing the beginning of the Artemis generation
and will kind of motivate and inspire a whole new generation of explorers.
So follow us on social media.