NASA delays new moon rocket debut test launch
NASA postponed the inaugural test launch of a new moon rocketship by at least four days due to an engine-cooling problem.
NASA has declined to set a specific date for relaunching the mission dubbed Artemis I, officials said a second launch attempt might happen as soon as Friday, pending more data analysis.
“If engineers can fix the launch pad issue in 48 to 72 hours, Friday is in play,” said Michael Sarafin, NASA’s Artemis mission manager.
The planned mission is the first for NASA’s moon-to-Mars Artemis program, the successor to the Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and ’70s, using the Space Launch Vehicle (SLS) rocket and Orion human capsule.
The uncrewed Orion capsule will fly around the moon and splash in the Pacific after six weeks.
The malfunction on Monday surfaced as the rocket’s fuel tanks were being filled with super-cooled liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellants at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
NASA reported one of the four main SLS engines didn’t cool as expected during “conditioning.” Two minutes after launch, the flight was cancelled.
Late-hour launch postponements are routine in the space sector, so Monday was not a significant setback for NASA or its contractors, Boeing Co (BA.N) for SLS and Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) for Orion.
After a scrubbed launch, NASA head Bill Nelson said, “We don’t launch until it’s right. This is a very complicated machine, a very complicated system, and all those things have to work. And you don’t want to light the candle until it’s ready to go.”
Thousands of spectators gathered on Cape Canaveral’s shoreline with binoculars. Vice President Kamala Harris joined selected visitors at the space centre.
The 5.75-million-pound vehicle will undergo a demanding demonstration flight to test its reliability before carrying humans in 2024. The SLS is the U.S. space agency’s largest new vertical launch system since the Apollo Saturn V rocket developed out of the U.S.-Soviet space race during the Cold War.
Due to the complexity of Monday’s issue and restrictions on how long a rocket can stay at a launch tower before blastoff, the spaceship could be rolled back to its vehicle assembly building if repairs drag on too long. Such a shift would take weeks, not days. NASA officials haven’t made a decision yet.
NASA’s pre-launch “wet-dress rehearsal” testing of the SLS predicted Monday’s show-stopping technical glitch when a hydrogen fuel line failure prompted engineers to postpone a thorough engine-conditioning test.
NASA officials chose to finalize launch preparations and withhold the first conditioning run-through to the actual countdown, understanding that this could cause a liftoff delay, as happened Monday.
Sarafin said a “vent valve” malfunction prevented engineers from pressurizing a hydrogen fuel tank.
After a Tuesday meeting, NASA officials expect to know the next actions to analyze launch data.