NASA’s Artemis I rocket sits on launch pad 39-B at Kennedy Space Center on September 2, 2022 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
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NASA will skip its new Moon rocket launch attempt next week as a tropical storm is expected to turn into a major hurricane.
This is the third delay in the past month for a test flight in lunar orbit with a mannequin but without an astronaut, an event that follows NASA’s moon landing program half a century ago. . Hydrogen fuel leaks and other technical problems have caused problems before.
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Now churning in the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Ian is expected to turn into a hurricane on Monday and make landfall on Florida’s Gulf coast on Thursday. However, the entire state is within the cone showing the probable path of the storm’s center – including NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Due to uncertain forecasts, NASA decided Saturday on Saturday to abandon the launch attempt scheduled for Tuesday and instead prepare the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket so it could return to the hangar. its flight. Regulators will decide on Sunday whether to take it off the launch pad.
If the rocket remains on the pedestal, NASA could test launch on October 2, the last chance before the two-week blackout period. But delaying the flight late Sunday or early Monday could mean a lengthy delay of the test flight, possibly pushing it to November.
The Space Launch System rocket is the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA. Assuming its first test flight goes well, the astronauts will climb aboard for the next mission in 2024, leading to a two-man moon landing in 2025.
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