NASA to make second attempt at debut moon rocket launch on Saturday
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[August 31, 2022]
By Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -NASA aims to make a
second attempt to launch its giant next-generation moon rocket on
Saturday, Sept. 3, five days after a pair of technical issues foiled an
initial try at getting the spacecraft off the ground for the first time,
agency officials said on Tuesday.
But prospects for success on Saturday appeared clouded by weather
reports predicting just a 40% chance of favorable conditions that day,
while the U.S. space agency acknowledged some outstanding technical
issues remain to be solved.
At a media briefing a day after Monday's first countdown ended with the
flight scrubbed, NASA officials said Monday's experience was useful in
trouble-shooting some problems and that additional difficulties could be
worked through in the midst of a second launch try.
In that way, the launch exercise was serving essentially as a real-time
dress rehearsal that hopefully would conclude with an actual, successful
liftoff.
For now, NASA officials said, plans call for keeping the 32-story-tall
Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion astronaut capsule on its
launch pad to avoid having to roll the massive spacecraft back into its
assembly building for a more extensive round of tests and repairs.
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If all goes as hoped, the SLS will blast off from the Kennedy Space
Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Saturday afternoon, during a
two-hour launch window that opens at 2:17 p.m., sending the Orion on an
uncrewed, six-week test flight around the moon and back.
The long-awaited voyage would kick off NASA's moon-to-Mars Artemis
program, the successor to the Apollo lunar project of the 1960s and
'70s, before U.S. human spaceflight efforts shifted to low-Earth orbit
with space shuttles and the International Space Station.
NASA's initial Artemis I launch attempt on Monday ended after data
showed that one of the rocket's main-stage engines failed to reach the
proper pre-launch temperature required for ignition, forcing a halt to
the countdown and a postponement.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, mission managers said they believe a
faulty sensor in the rocket's engine section was the culprit for the
engine cooling issue.
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![](../images/083122PIX/news_g9.jpg)
NASA's next-generation moon rocket, the
Space Launch System (SLS), with the Orion crew capsule perched on
top, stands on launch complex 39B one day after an engine-cooling
problem forced NASA to delay the debut test launch at Cape
Canaveral, Florida, U.S. August 30, 2022. REUTERS/Steve Nesius
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Aug/31/images/ads/current/friendshipmanor_sda_FOOTBALL_2022.png)
As a remedy for Saturday's attempt, mission managers plan to begin
that engine-cooling process roughly 30 minutes earlier in the launch
countdown, NASA's Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson
said. But a full explanation for the faulty sensor requires more
data analysis by engineers.
"The way the sensor is behaving doesn't line up with the physics of
the situation," said John Honeycutt, NASA's SLS program manager.
The sensor was last checked and calibrated months ago in the rocket
factory, Honeycutt said. Replacing the sensor would require rolling
the rocket back to its assembly building, a process that could delay
the mission for months.
The first voyage of the SLS-Orion, a mission dubbed Artemis I, aims
to put the 5.75-million-pound vehicle through its paces in a
rigorous demonstration flight pushing its design limits, before NASA
deems it reliable enough to carry astronauts.
Named for the goddess who was Apollo's twin sister in ancient Greek
mythology, Artemis seeks to return astronauts to the moon's surface
as early as 2025, though many experts believe that time frame will
likely slip by a few years.
The last humans to walk on the moon were the two-man descent team of
Apollo 17 in 1972, following in the footsteps of 10 other astronauts
during five earlier missions beginning with Apollo 11 in 1969.
Artemis also is enlisting commercial and international help to
eventually establish a long-term lunar base as a stepping stone to
even more ambitious human voyages to Mars, a goal NASA officials say
would probably take until at least the late 2030s to achieve.
But NASA has many steps to take along the way, starting with getting
the SLS-Orion vehicle into space.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington; Editing by Josie Kao and
Stephen Coates)
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