Failed again. The takeoff of NASA’s new mega-rocket to the Moon was again canceled on Saturday, September 3, at the last moment, for the second time in less than a week. This setback causes a new delay in the launch of the American program Artemis, which should allow humans to return to the Moon.
Fifty years after the last Apollo mission, this flagship program should make it possible to establish a lasting human presence on the Earth satellite, then allowing it to be used as a springboard to Mars. The launch of the first Artemis 1 test mission, without an astronaut on board, was scheduled for 2:17 p.m. local time (8:17 p.m. in Paris), with a two-hour launch window, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
But NASA teams failed to solve a fuel leak problem, which started during the filling operations of the rocket tanks. the “main suspect”, explained Mike Sarafin, in charge of the mission at NASA, is a “seal” which surrounds a part allowing to connect the pipe through which the fuel passes and the rocket, an element designed to detach ultra-quickly just at the moment of take-off.
Another problem: the rocket’s emergency self-destruct system, designed to detonate it in the event of a deviating trajectory after takeoff, must a priori be tested again, and can only be tested in the assembly building. .
“Cancellation is absolutely the right decision“, reacted to journalists the astronaut Victor Glover, present on the spot. With these repeated tests, which make it possible to better understand this new vehicle, “People’s confidence should go up, not down”he argued.
NASA ended up deciding not to attempt a launch again in early September. The next possible periods for a launch are from September 19 to October 4, then from October 17 to 31. Mike Sarafin felt he was still “too early” to completely exclude the end of September, and promised a progress report next week. NASA said that the period of early October would be complicated to coordinate, because of the planned takeoff at the same time of a crew of astronauts for the International Space Station.
Artemis 1 should make it possible to verify that the Orion capsule, at the top of the rocket, is safe to transport astronauts in the future. Thanks to this new vessel, the American space agency intends to reconnect with distant human exploration, the Moon being 1,000 times further away than the International Space Station.
The trip is expected to last about six weeks in total. Orion will venture up to 64,000 km behind the Moon, farther than any other habitable spacecraft so far. The main purpose of Artemis 1 is to test the capsule’s heat shield, the largest ever built. On its return to the Earth’s atmosphere, it will have to withstand a speed of 40,000 km/h and a temperature half as hot as that of the surface of the Sun. In total, the ship must travel some 2.1 million kilometers until it lands in the Pacific Ocean.