It’s considered a training ground for Mars. Years behind schedule and billions over budget, Artemis aims to establish a sustained human presence on the moon, with crews eventually spending weeks at a time there. The $4.1 billion test flight is the first step in NASA’s Artemis program of renewed lunar exploration, named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology. Thousands of people who jammed the coast over the long Labor Day weekend, hoping to see the Space Launch System rocket soar, left disappointed. The launch team planned to ignore the faulty sensor this time around and rely on other instruments to ensure each main engine was properly chilled. NASA will work around a high-priority SpaceX astronaut flight to the International Space Station scheduled for early October.Įven more of a problem Monday was that a sensor indicated one of the rocket’s four engines was too warm, though engineers later verified it actually was cool enough. With a two-week launch blackout period looming in just a few days, the rocket is now grounded until late September or October. Either way, several weeks of work will be needed, according to officials.
Some of the work and testing may be performed at the pad before the rocket is moved. That was on top of leaks detected during countdown drills earlier in the year.Īfter the latest setback, mission managers decided to haul the rocket off the pad and into the hangar for further repairs and system updates. The previous try on Monday at launching the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA, was also troubled by hydrogen leaks, though they were smaller. The inaugural flight is now off for weeks, if not months. (AP) - NASA’s new moon rocket sprang another dangerous fuel leak Saturday, forcing launch controllers to call off their second attempt this week to send a crew capsule into lunar orbit with test dummies.
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