On Monday, more than 50 years after Apollo’s final lunar mission, NASA postponed for at least four days the debut test launch of the massive new rocketship it intends to use for future astronaut flights back to the moon due to a problem with engine cooling.
The space agency declined to provide a precise timeline for relaunching the Artemis I mission. Senior NASA officials said at a news conference a few hours after the countdown was stopped that a second try could still happen as soon as Friday, depending on what more data analysis shows.
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If engineers can resolve the issue on the launch pad within the next 48 to 72 hours, NASA’s Artemis mission manager, Michael Sarafin, told reporters that Friday is a distinct possibility.
The planned mission will inaugurate NASA’s moon-to-Mars Artemis programme, the successor to the Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and ’70s, as well as the maiden voyage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion astronaut capsule.
The project requires an unmanned six-week test flight of the Orion capsule around the moon and return to Earth for a splashdown in the Pacific.
On Monday, the problem happened at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, as the rocket’s fuel tanks were being filled with super-cold liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellants.
NASA stated that one of the four primary SLS engines did not cool as planned during the “conditioning” procedure. The flight was cancelled two minutes after the scheduled departure time.
Late-night launch delays are common in the space industry, and Monday’s was not a big setback for NASA or its main contractors, Boeing Co. (BA.N) for SLS and Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT.N) for Orion.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson stated in a webcast interview following the aborted launch, “We don’t launch until everything is perfect.” “This is an extremely intricate machine and system, and everything must function properly. And you should not light the candle until it is prepared. ”
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Nonetheless, the delay was disappointing to the tens of thousands of launch viewers who had congregated around Cape Canaveral with binoculars. Kamala Harris, the vice president, just joined the other invited guests at the space facility.
The goal of the mission is to put the 5.75-million-pound spacecraft through its paces on a difficult demonstration flight that will push the limits of its design before NASA decides that it is safe enough to carry people on a second mission planned for 2024.
The SLS marks the largest new vertical launch vehicle that the US space agency has constructed since the Saturn V rocket flown during the Apollo programme, which developed out of the US-Soviet space rivalry during the Cold War.
If troubleshooting and repairs drag on too long, the spacecraft might be brought back to its vehicle assembly facility due to the complexity of the problem that appeared on Monday and the limitations on how long a rocket is authorised to remain at a launch tower before launch.
Such a relocation would necessitate a longer wait than a few days or a week. But NASA officials said that they were not ready to make that kind of decision yet.
NASA’s pre-launch “wet-dress rehearsal” testing of the SLS predicted Monday’s show-stopping technical glitch when an issue with a hydrogen fuel line aboard the rocket prompted engineers to forgo a full engine-conditioning test.
NASA managers decided to go ahead with the final launch preparations and put off the first conditioning run-through until the actual countdown, even though they knew this could delay the launch, which is what happened on Monday.
Sarafin said that an issue with a “vent valve” made it hard for engineers to put enough pressure on a hydrogen fuel tank.
During a Tuesday meeting to analyse the launch attempt data, NASA officials expected to have a better understanding of the next steps.
Five decades since humans last walked on the moon, NASA plans to return people to the moon, including the first woman to set foot on the lunar surface, as early as 2025 if the first two Artemis missions are successful, although many analysts feel this timeline is likely to slide by a few years.
The final people to walk on the moon were the two-person descent crew of Apollo 17 in 1972, following 10 prior astronauts on five previous flights, beginning with Apollo 11 in 1969.
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NASA officials think it will take at least until the late 2030s to reach the goal of the Artemis program, which is to build a permanent base on the moon as a stepping stone for even more ambitious missions to Mars.
The programme was called after the ancient Greek goddess who was Apollo’s twin sister.
SLS has been under development for nearly a decade, with several years of delays and cost increases. However, Artemis has also created tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in revenue.
Orion will carry a simulated crew of three, including one male and two female mannequins with sensors to measure radiation levels and other stresses that real astronauts would face.
