NASA suspends the takeoff of the mission due to technical failures detected this morning
Artemis failed to take off. The launch of the first flight of the lunar program has been postponed to the last minute. As explained by those responsible for the mission, in the fuel loading process, the technical team observed a crack in one of the tanks. The leak, detected this morning, has been defined by experts as a “bleed” that still “has not been able to stop”. At least not during the short launch window scheduled for this Monday. And this is what, finally, has forced to postpone the launch of the lunar rocket.
With only a few hours to go before the launch of the mission, the technicians in charge of fine-tuning the rocket began to detect a series of errors. First, in the process of filling the fuel tanks, a “crack” was observed which, in turn, produced a leak of liquid hydrogen. Then the control panel detected abnormal levels of pressure and temperature in one of the four main engines of the aircraft.
The factor that has set off all the alarms has been the inability to cool machinery. This failure, according to the reports revealed to date, has been the one that has finally precipitated the decision to suspend the launch of Artemis. “We can’t launch the mission until everything is in place.“, said Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, during the first press appearance after the suspension of the mission.
next release window
Yet it is not clear when it will be tried again the takeoff of the first flight of Artemis: the new generation of space missions that in 2025 it will take the first female astronauts to the Moon and that, in turn, will lay the foundations so that one day the earthlings can reach the red planet and beyond. At this time, the technical team in charge of the mission is analyzing all the data collected during the last phase of the preparations to try to understand the origins and severity of the failure. At the moment, beyond the leaks, everything points to the rocket being in a “stable and safe condition.”
According to the technical team in charge of the mission, the next Artemis launch window is would open on September 2 from 18:30 (Spanish peninsular time). If the experts manage to fix the damage to the rocket by then, the definitive takeoff of the lunar mission could take place on Friday. Otherwise, if the fixes turn out to be more complicated than anticipated, it is not out of the question that the rocket may have to be returned to the assembly center for in-depth analysis. In that case, the review could take several weeks and the launch could be postponed sine die.
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It’s not the first time that damage to the Artemis fuel tanks is detected. The lunar mission, in fact, was supposed to take off a few years ago months but, during one of the preliminary tests carried out last spring, it also several leaks were observed in the hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks of the aircraft. In that case, the problem was detected when the rocket was already on the launch pad and, to correct it, the technical team returned it to the main warehouse. It is not yet clear if the “cracks” detected this Monday are the same as then or if, on the contrary, they are something totally different.
technical test
Today’s launch was supposed to be the first of three planned Artemis program. The objective of this Monday’s flight was precisely to test the Space Launch System (the most powerful and sophisticated rocket built to date), as well as the Orion spacecraft that, in the future, will carry the next generation of astronauts to Moon. As explained by the spokesman for the US space agency, these types of incidents and delays are common in the aerospace industry. In fact, Nelson himself recalled the case of some missions that have had to cancel their launch more than four times before you can successfully take off.