Published on: 02/09/2022 – 04:42 Modified: 02/09/2022 – 04:40
Kennedy Space Center (United States) (AFP) – The stars appear to be aligned for NASA’s moon rocket to finally blast off on Saturday, with favorable weather forecasts and technical problems delaying the launch earlier this week solved
Liftoff is scheduled for 14:17 local time (1817 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the possibility of a delay of up to two hours if necessary.
The chance of favorable weather conditions within that window stood at 60 percent Thursday evening.
“The weather looks good” and it’s not expected to be a “showstopper,” forecast analyst Melody Lovin told a news conference.
NASA has also been working to correct the technical difficulties that caused the last-minute delay of the launch during its originally scheduled window on Monday.
At first, it appeared that one of the rocket’s four main engines was overheating, though that turned out to be just a reading from a “bad sensor,” rocket program manager John Honeycutt said Thursday.
In the future, incorrect information will simply be ignored.
Then a fuel tank leak had to be repaired.
“We were able to find what we believe is the source of the leak and fix it,” said release manager Charlie Blackwell-Thompson.
The Artemis 1 mission is an uncrewed test flight. It will be the first launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the most powerful in the world and which has been in development for more than a decade.
“There’s no guarantee we’re going to go down on Saturday, but we’re going to try,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission director.
If the mission continues Saturday, the Orion capsule attached to the rocket will spend 37 days in space, orbiting the moon about 60 miles (100 kilometers) away.
It is Orion that will return future astronauts to the Moon, including the first woman and the first person of color to walk on its surface, in 2025 at the earliest.
Artemis is named after the twin sister of the Greek god Apollo, for whom the first missions to the Moon were named. With the new flagship program, NASA hopes to one day test the technology aimed at sending humans to Mars.
© 2022 AFP