That means we still have to wait for the beginning of the Artemis era, in which people have to return to the surface of the moon. Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, so that the name echoes the lunar missions of the 1960s and 1970s, when humans first landed on the moon. On mission Artemis 3, in 2025 at the earliest, the first woman and first person of color will set foot on the lunar surface.
It is far from that yet. For now, NASA must first try to get the moon rocket SLS into space. That is one of the two main goals of mission Artemis 1 and should have happened between 8:17 PM and 10:17 PM. But with just over three hours left on the clock, Nasa blew it off even earlier this time than on Monday’s first attempt.
Leaking closure
The engineers of the American space agency on Saturday failed to fill the rocket with liquid hydrogen. Culprit: a leaky closure at a supply line. On Monday another leaking pipeline also caused problems, but that was solved in time and the rocket could be filled.
It is not surprising that problems arise there. The core stage of the SLS rocket shrinks, for example, by about 15 centimeters when it is filled with the very cold liquid hydrogen due to cooling. Connecting cables is therefore not just a matter of clicking into place. And that’s just one of countless complex technical challenges surrounding the launch.
On Saturday, three consecutive attempts to plug the new hydrogen leak failed, so the engineers had to advise the mission control not to launch. As a result, this time Nasa did not even get to the moment that previously threw a spanner in the works: bringing the engines up to temperature under the SLS rocket.
On Monday, that failed with engine 3, although the engineers suspected that it was not the engine that refused service, but the temperature sensor. Because the launch was canceled so early before launch this time, it is still unknown whether that problem has now been solved.
Backup options
NASA has two possible launch moments in the short term. For a launch, among other things, the position of the earth and moon must be exactly correct. There is a two-hour launch window on Monday. Then there is another (modest) backup option on Tuesday. The launch window is then only half an hour long. Whether NASA decides to use one of those two options, or whether the rocket has to roll back to the hangar for inspection and repair, the organization will only announce later.
Should NASA indeed decide to roll back the rocket, it will take at least a few weeks before the space agency can make another attempt to actually usher in the new lunar era.
In space travel, a canceled launch is not simply a case of ignorance or poor preparation. With these types of large and complex companies, things simply sometimes go wrong. For example, the record for a launch of the Space Shuttle, whose SLS rocket reuses the old engines, stands at six times. It didn’t go well until the seventh time.