The launch of NASA’s new SLS lunar rocket will not take place in the coming days, the US space agency announced on Saturday, without giving a new date for the operation.
The launch period that ends on Tuesday “is no longer on the table,” Jim Free, NASA’s head of exploration systems development, was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.
The next launch windows, determined by the positions of the Earth and Moon, are September 19-October 4 and October 17-31.
Fifty years after the last Apollo mission, Artemis’s new core program should allow it to establish a human presence on the Moon, allowing it to be used as a “stepping stone” to Mars.
For the second time in less than a week, the launch of the new rocket was postponed today due to a fuel leak, the US space agency announced.
“The Artemis I mission to the Moon has been delayed. Teams tried to fix a problem related to a leak in the ‘hardware’ that transferred fuel to the rocket, but were unsuccessful,” NASA said on Twitter.
This was the second postponement of the test flight launch of the new rocket, without a crew, having been canceled on Monday due to technical problems.
The launch, now with no announced date, marks the start of the Artemis lunar program, with which the United States intends to return to the surface of the Moon in 2025, a year later than planned, placing the first woman astronaut and the first black . astronaut on lunar soil.
Source: Observadora
