If the launch cannot occur during the Labor Day weekend, the rocket will have to be rolled back to the giant Vehicle Assembly Building - essentially a garage for rockets. “It’s not going to fly until it’s ready.” “This is a brand-new rocket,” Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said during a news conference in the afternoon. Even if they had resolved the technical issues, weather conditions would likely have prevented a launch. Eastern, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the launch director, decided that it was time to call it off and try again another day. Troubleshooting efforts proved unsuccessful within the limited time, and at about 8:40 a.m. Otherwise, sudden shrinkage from the temperature shock of supercold propellants could crack the metal engine parts. The issue that halted the launch on Monday was a liquid hydrogen line that did not adequately chill one of the rocket’s four core-stage engines, part of the preparations needed before ignition. NASA said that it had not ruled out another attempt on Friday. Thousands of disappointed space fans left the scrubbed launch on Monday. The program, including the giant rocket, has nonetheless received steady support from Congress and NASA officials. Monday’s scrubbed launch added another delay to the moon program, named Artemis, which has already cost more than $40 billion and is years behind schedule. In particular, NASA wants to make sure that the heat shield on Orion can survive a fiery entry through Earth’s atmosphere at 25,000 miles per hour, the speed of a spacecraft returning from the moon. The first mission is scheduled to be a weekslong flight around the moon to test both the rocket and the Orion crew capsule where astronauts will sit on future missions. Mission managers will meet on Tuesday to discuss their next steps.Īlthough no astronauts are to be on board, the rocket - what NASA calls the Space Launch System - would usher in a new era of human exploration, including sending the first woman and the first person of color to the surface of the moon. But on Monday, the rocket did not go, and NASA officials said it was too early to guess whether it might be able to launch Friday, the next potential opportunity, or later.
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