The Artemis 1 Mission has started. This morning, at 7:47 AM Italian time, the Space Launch System (SLS) carrier rocket took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The huge rocket will take the unmanned Orion capsule around the Moon. It will be the next step for the return of the human exploration of our satellite.
“The start of a new, great international cooperation which sees once more Italy and the whole industry chain among the protagonists, the continuation of a journey which, over time, has made us partners of excellence in the challenge of space exploration – said the president of the ASI, Giorgio Saccoccia - Europe, the United States and several other countries in the world share a unique aim for the progress of the whole humanity: returning to the Moon to stay! Fifty years after the last Apollo mission, today, with Artemis 1, we travel to the Moon to make new discoveries, learn to live and work beyond the borders of our planet. This mission represents a big moment for all the people who look at space, technology, future with the eyes of those who believe in human intelligence and don’t stop dreaming”.
The Italian participation in this process develops also thanks to the essential contribution and the important cooperative work between the Italian Space Agency, the Italian industry and the several small and medium-sized enterprises. The involvement of the industry starts with Leonardo and Thales Alenia Space, which have manufactured some components of Orion’s European Service Module on behalf of the European Space Agency.
In this first launch of the SLS, also Argomoon, the Italian Space Agency (ASI)’s CubeSat and only European satellite, will be aboard: manufactured by Argotec, from Turin, it will produce images of the launcher’s second stage.
To follow the stages of the launch, the ASI has organized a live stream with some experts from the Agency, in order to examine in depth the Italian role and the important opportunities coming from this new international mission.
The full video of the live stream will be available on ASITV