Random Blog Post 2

 

Random Blog Post 2

At first, I was struggling with a topic to write for my random blog post so going through my camera roll would be a great way to remind me of the endeavors I have been on recently. After looking through, I saw a picture of a sunrise I had taken in Florida. The reason I had been in Florida was that one of my mom's projects at Aerojet Rocketdyne was to build the engines that would be propelling Artemis, NASA's new rocket into space. Back in September, they were trying to have the rocket launch into space for the first time so they could start sending people up on these rockets. However, our trip did not go as planned.

The thing about rocket science is that it is very precise and there are many safety regulations that come into play. There are very few windows these rockets have to launch and at any sign of trouble they can call a scrub. Our original launch time was scheduled for 8:15am. The annoying thing about that is how we had to be at the launch site by 4:30am because they want to make sure any disguised guests had arrived on the base where they take off. So we got there bright and early and waited till the countdown got close. Around the 40-minute mark for launch, there were reports that one of the values used to help cool off the engines was not working properly. We were told that it should not be too much of an issue but it ended up being a little larger than we thought. Instead of launching, they had to delay and now fast approaching the new launch date of November 13th.

Knowing this will be the first launch of a spacecraft that will be taking humans the furthest, I knew I needed to go a second time to see if we could get this thing in space. The rocket's mission this time is to go around the moon twice and then it will come back home. Now the new launch time is scheduled around 12:15am in Orlando. I will be flying out that morning and then going straight to the launch. I am excited because this time my sister is coming with me as well. Night-time launches are the best because they light up the nighttime sky to make it look as if it is daytime. Previously, when I was little I had been to 2 space launches where we were able to see several of our friends head up to space to go to the international space station for 2 weeks. I am so incredibly grateful that I have experienced these super amazing events and hopefully another one in the next couple of weeks.