NASA cancels second launch retry for Artemis moon rocket

NASA has halted the countdown for the second time in five days, postponing plans to begin the debut test flight of the giant next-generation rocket, the first mission of NASA’s Moon-to-Mars Artemis program.

The latest attempt to launch the 32-story-tall Space Launch Systems (SLS) rocket and its Orion capsule follows technicians to fix a leak of supercooled liquid hydrogen propellant pumped into the vehicle’s core stage fuel tanks. After repeated attempts it was washed. .

Not only did they struggle to fix the leak itself, but mission managers fell behind on the countdown, leaving little time to complete pre-launch preparations before launch.

Approximately three hours before the scheduled two-hour launch window was scheduled to begin at 2:17 PM EDT (1817 GMT), pre-flight operations for the day were aborted.

No timeframe was immediately announced for a retry launch of the mission, dubbed Artemis 1.

Monday’s first launch attempt fell through after technical problems surfaced during the 11th hour during the countdown. This included another leaking fuel line, a faulty temperature sensor and several cracks in the insulation foam. NASA officials said those issues had been resolved satisfactorily before.

https://cyprus-mail.com/2022/09/03/nasa-calls-off-second-launch-retry-for-artemis-moon-rocket/ NASA cancels second launch retry for Artemis moon rocket