Tension is rising in Dwingeloo: today a rocket is launched in Florida towards the moon. And despite the fact that the US is a long way away, they are in the ring at CAMRAS in Dwingeloo. There the mission is followed with the radio telescope.
The mission was originally scheduled to take place on August 29, but was canceled at the last minute due to technical issues. One of the four engines on board could not get up to temperature.
The launch attempt – because there is still no guarantee that it will succeed – is on Saturday evening between 20:17 and 22:17. Shortly after the launch, the first signals should already be received in Dwingeloo.
“Let’s hope it works out this time,” says Tammo Jan Dijkema of CAMRAS. “Of course it is also a huge rocket, it takes more than ten years of work. Every part has to work, so there is a chance that they will find a new flopper today that doesn’t work.”
As it is a test flight, this flight will be unmanned. A manned flight around the moon will follow in 2024. Only in 2025 or even beyond will probably two astronauts actually land in the month.
The rocket will orbit the moon for several rounds. After a good month, the rocket returns to Earth.
To operate the telescope, the people from CAMRAS sit in the observation house under the mirror. So they are, as it were, ‘inside’ the telescope. They need at least two people for this to guarantee safety, but Dijkema expects that they will be there with about five people during the launch.
“Early in the evening we can see him for a while. The second time he comes up around ten o’clock and then we can see him all night.”
Even though they say they are certainly looking forward to it, the people of CAMRAS are not going to follow the moon mission purely for fun. The information they pick up is forwarded to NASA, which uses it to determine the rocket’s location.
Dijkema indicates that they are going to listen to the whistle of the rocket. “We can measure how fast they are going relative to us from the height of that tone. Things that go away from you give off a slightly lower sound, which is called the Doppler effect. So we measure the speed.”