The 30-story-tall SLS rocket, topped by an uncrewed Orion spacecraft, was rolled out earlier this month to the same historic launch complex used by the mighty Saturn V during the Apollo moonshots that ended in 1972. The flight is meant as an initial step in eventually returning humans to the surface of the moon - a flight that could take place as early as 2025. The next launch opportunity for the uncrewed Artemis I launch is Friday. "You don't want to light the candle until it's ready to go," Nelson, himself an a former space shuttle astronaut, said. Putting the flight on hold was "illustrative that this is a very complicated machine, a very complicated system, and all those things have to work," he said. "We don't launch until it's right," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said after Monday's decision to scrub. A leak was also discovered, but resolved. Then came a 45-minutes weather delay early Monday morning that slowed the procedure for filling the core stage with its hydrogen fuel. First, lightning strikes at the pad on Saturday initially caused some concern, but officials later said there was no damage to the vehicle, the capsule or ground equipment. ET, flight controllers had called a hold while engineers evaluated the problem.Įngineers were dealing with a series of issues in the runup to the planned launch. With just 40 minutes left on the countdown, scheduled as early as 8:33 a.m. One of the four SLS core-stage engines failed to reach the proper temperature for launch, prompting the Artemis I mission's launch director to scrub the planned Monday morning liftoff. NASA's hopes for a Monday launch of the massive Space Launch System rocket from the Kennedy Space Center on a test flight to the moon are on hold for at least a few days after engineers were unable to resolve an engine problem.
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