NASA will make a second attempt to launch its powerful new moon rocket on Saturday, after scrambling a test flight earlier in the week, an official said Tuesday.
The uncrewed mission, named Artemis 1, will bring the United States one step closer to returning astronauts to the Moon five decades after humans last walked on the lunar surface.
Mission Manager Mike Sarafin said the NASA team “agreed to move our launch date to Saturday, September 3rd.”
The blast off had been scheduled for Monday morning, but was canceled because a test to get one of the rocket’s four RS-25 engines into the right temperature range for launch was unsuccessful.
Sarafin announced the date for the new launch attempt during a media briefing on Tuesday, and NASA later tweeted that the two-hour launch window on Saturday would begin at 14:17 (18:17 GMT).
Launch meteorologist Mark Burger said there’s a 60 percent chance of rain or thunderstorms on launch day, but added there’s still a “pretty good chance weather-wise to launch on Saturday “.
The purpose of Artemis 1, named after Apollo’s twin sister, is to test the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule that sits on the upper part
Dummies equipped with sensors replace the astronauts on the mission and will record acceleration, vibration and radiation levels.
Tens of thousands of people had gathered to watch the launch, 50 years after the Apollo 17 astronauts last set foot on the moon.
Ahead of Monday’s planned launch, operations to fill the orange-and-white rocket with ultra-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen were briefly delayed due to the risk of lightning.
A possible leak was detected during the filling of the main stage with hydrogen, causing a pause. After the tests, the flow resumed. NASA engineers later detected the engine temperature problem and decided to clean up the launch.
“The way the sensor behaves … doesn’t line up with the physics of the situation,” said John Honeycutt, Space Launch System program manager, adding that such sensor problems “were not very unusual.” .
Sarafin said the team would reconvene Thursday to assess the situation.
The Orion capsule will orbit the Moon to see if the ship is safe for humans in the near future. At some point, Artemis aims to put a woman and a person of color on the moon for the first time.
The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts into orbit around the Moon without landing on its surface.
The Artemis 3 crew will land on the Moon in 2025 at the earliest.
And since humans have already visited the Moon, Artemis has her sights set on another lofty goal: a manned mission to Mars.
The Artemis program aims to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface. Gateway would serve as a refueling and resupply station for a trip to the Red Planet that would take at least several months.