Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
NASA’S ARTEMIS 1 moon rocket launch has been called off due to an engine conditioning issue.
The uncrewed 322-foot Space Launch System (SLS) rocket had been due to take off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, during a two-hour window after 1.33pm Irish time, but was called off by the launch director moments before.
Teams had been working on an engine bleed on engine 3 of the rocket and were trying to figure out a troubleshooting plan, but the space agency said the issue couldn’t be remedied and the launch attempt was scrubbed.
The next available launch date for the mission will be on Friday 2 September, but a decision has not yet been made on whether it will go ahead.
A liquid hydrogen leak earlier interrupted Nasa’s preparations for the new moon rocket launch. Similar fuel leaks hindered Nasa’s countdown tests in April and June.
A “crack” was also identified on the thermal protection system material on one of the rocket’s connection joints.
Speaking on the space agency’s live feed, spokesperson Derrol Nail said: “The issue that came up was an engine lead that couldn’t be remedied, but the rocket is currently in a stable configuration.
The launch of #Artemis I is no longer happening today as teams work through an issue with an engine bleed. Teams will continue to gather data, and we will keep you posted on the timing of the next launch attempt. https://t.co/tQ0lp6Ruhv pic.twitter.com/u6Uiim2mom
— NASA (@NASA) August 29, 2022
“Engineers are now working on a plan to continue gathering data about this particular engine and the bleed that didn’t work out,” he said.
In an update posted online, Nasa said: “The launch director halted today’s Artemis I launch attempt at approximately 8.34 am EDT. The Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft remain in a safe and stable configuration.
“Launch controllers were continuing to evaluate why a bleed test to get the RS-25 engines on the bottom of the core stage to the proper temperature range for liftoff was not successful, and ran out of time in the two-hour launch window. Engineers are continuing to gather additional data.”
Nasa’s most powerful rocket yet had been set to blast off on the maiden voyage of a mission to take humans back to the moon, and eventually to MArs.
Tens of thousands of people had gathered along the beaches of Florida to watch the launch, including US Vice President Kamala Harris.
Hotels around Cape Canaveral were booked solid with between 100,000 and 200,000 spectators expected to attend the launch.
The capsule is set to orbit the moon to see if the vessel is safe for people in the near future. At some point Artemis will see a woman and a person of color walk on the moon for the first time.
“This mission goes with a lot of hopes and dreams of a lot of people. And we now are the Artemis generation,” Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said Saturday.
The massive orange-and-white rocket has been sitting on the space center’s Launch Complex 39B for a week.
Its fuel tanks were to be filled overnight Sunday into Monday with more than three million liters of liquid hydrogen and oxygen.
For the first time a woman – Charlie Blackwell-Thompson – is set to give the final green light for liftoff. Women now account for 30% of the staff in the control room; there was just one back with Apollo 11.
The Orion capsule will orbit around the moon, coming within 100 kilometers at its closest approach and then firing its engines to get to a distance 40,000 miles beyond, a record for a spacecraft rated to carry humans.
Temperatures half as hot as the Sun
One of the primary objectives of the mission is to test the capsule’s heat shield, which at 16 feet in diameter is the largest ever built.
On its return to the Earth’s atmosphere, the heat shield will have to withstand a speed of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 2,760 degrees Celsius. That is half as hot as the Sun.
Taking the place of people for now, dummies fitted with sensors will take the place of crew members, recording acceleration, vibration and radiation levels.
It will deploy small satellites to study the lunar surface.
A complete failure would be devastating for a program that is costing $4.1 billion per launch and is already running years behind schedule.
The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts into orbit around the moon without landing on its surface. The crew of Artemis 3 is to land on the moon in 2025 at the earliest.
While the Apollo astronauts who walked on the moon were exclusively white men, the Artemis program plans to include the first woman and person of color.
And since humans have already visited the moon, Artemis has its sights set on another lofty goal – an eventual crewed mission to Mars.
The Artemis program is to establish a lasting human presence on the moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface.
Gateway would serve as a staging and refueling station for a voyage to Mars that would take a minimum of several months.
© AFP 2022, additional reporting from Jane Moore and the Press Association
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I wait until I get the free travel pass then I might consider taking a trip
@John Gaughan: feed the people stop wasting money
Why don’t they just use the same type of rocket that brought Neil Armstrong and stop wasting time and money stick to the tried and tested if it even ever happened
@Blackie Connors: I read somewhere that they have the plans for the Saturn V rockets but it’s the manufacturing knowledge to build them that is lost. They had to start from scratch essentially. Open to correction on that though.
@Blackie Connors: That’s a bit like saying “Why don’t we all drive model Ts?” Firstly they are obsolete, and secondly the technologies to build them has been abandoned years ago. Can you imagine trying to retool a modern Ford factory to build a model T?
@Blackie Connors: i would imagine it would not be more economically viable to upgrade the ancient technology, upgrade to make it crewless, remake all the tooling and parts from scratch, retrain all staff, build the Saturn V into the plans going forward and use inefficient processes and procedures. Anyway, if it was viable I’m sure they would have done it.
@Blackie Connors: “if it even ever happened” – I don’t even think the actual Blackie Connors would have said something that dumb
@Blackie Connors:” if it even ever happened” XD lad probably goes to mass every Sunday and doesn’t believe someone went to the moon
@Blackie Connors: It is no longer possible to simply build a Saturn V because many parts of it were specified down to the precise impurities in the metals used, the mines that provided them are long since played out and all the certification testing and alloy adjusting would need to be done from scratch.
@Joshua Walsh: almost correct. That was actually a story about the F1 engines that powered the Saturn V. Some of the plans are there but the tooling isn’t.
@Blackie Connors: They are planning to later on – the stage for the flight towards the moon is derived from the same engine (the F1) that took the Apollo crews – this will be the F1-B.
@socmot Слава Україні!: The engines used for the first stage are RS-25s from the Space Shuttle.
Wha abow da howmmmless??
@dreiglaser: Hopefully they’ll be voluntary pioneers eventually? Desperate to find yourself priced off your own planet, though.
“There seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere…”
“A woman and a person of colour” It’s pretty obvious from this and the design that this another publicity stunt just like Apollo and not a serious attempt to achieve a real presence in space and do anything useful . Werner von Braun must be spinning fast enough to power America.
If it was a serious program it would include a small fleet of long life reusable orbital transfer vehicles to shuttle from Earth orbit to lunar or other planet orbit and a small fleet of long lived reusable landers.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: do some research will you? That’s exactly what they’re working towards. As for it being a publicity stunt, nobody, not even the Americans would spend that much time and dollars on a stunt for publicity. Don’t be ridiculous.
@Terry Fagan VO: What do you think the Apollo program was? They did it before and they’re doing it again.
If that is their goal then they’re doing it very badly.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: I wouldnt exactly call the Apollo program a publicity stunt. It was a competition, i suppose.
@Pauline Gallagher: It had no goal other than making good on Kennedy’s speech and doing so before the USSR beat them to it because they had to prove that capitalism could do things that communism couldn’t.
That’s why I call it a publicity stunt.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: The Apollo Program didn’t have a platfrom orbiting the moon that can be used as a springboard to Mars. That’s what Artemis and Gateway are leading to.
@Terry Fagan VO: No but they did put Skylab up which could have been used just as well, and could also have been the basis for OTV and landers.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: Skylab was an earth-orbiting station for short-term use. You should read up on this stuff before blurting out utter ballcocks.
@Terry Fagan VO: Yes I know, I remember skylab going up and I remember the plans to expand it by lifting more similar modules. Then William Proxmire happened.
The point is that Skylab was a modified Saturn V third stage, and the same approach could have been used to make a similar sized OTV or a nice big reusable lander.
I’ve been reading up on this stuff for over five decades. With NASA it pays to look at what they actually do because their long term plans rarely get to happen.
@Terry Fagan VO: One more thing, why do you think a lunar orbiting station is a better place to stage from than earth orbit.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: “…a person of colour…” “Werner von Braun must be spinning…” – maybe, but he was a Nazi!
@Colm de Cleir: No hé wasn’t, he worked for them because he was a German in Germany and wanted to build rockets and didn’t care about anything else. Once the war was over he was perfectly happy to build them for the Americans. If the Russians had got to him first he’d have built them for the USSR just as happily.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: Von Braun would not have been just as happy working for the Soviet Union. He very deliberately and carefully moved all his machinery and V-2 rocket building personnel (most of them Jewish slaves) from Peenemünde to the Harz Mountains, far away from the approaching Red Army. He contrived carefully to be captured by the Americans rather than the Soviets.
@Terry Fagan VO: “nobody, not even the Americans would spend that much time and dollars on a stunt for publicity.”
But that’s precisely what John Kennedy did when he announced the moon landing goal on September 12, 1962. The United States spent far more money on the Apollo programme than has been spent on the Space Launch System they’re about to launch now.
Kennedy wasn’t interested in science. He wrote explicitly in his famous memorandum to his vice president on April 20, 1961 that he wanted a stunt to beat the Soviet Union in the eyes of the world.
Just checking my colour and its mixed with some bits farmers tan and others milk white. Do I qualify?
A fuel leak on a fiesta is a problem. A fuel leak on a rocket that’s supposed to go to the moon…
Dirt in the carburettor…
I stopped using the car to go to the shops to cut down on carbon emissions. I should have saved enough by now to equal this PR rocket.
@Bramley Hawthorne: How did you get a hydrogen car?
@Bramley Hawthorne: Its fueled by liquid oxygen (O) & hydrogen (H), so coming out of the exhaust is (hint, H2O)
@Gavin Conran: Spot on. These know-alls cracks me up. “But what about the exhaust wrecking our planet?” Wonkers.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: And oxygen.
To infinity …..
@Nigel Comerford: No-one can ever go to infinity, by definition. Did they not teach you that in primary school?
NASA and the ESA should clearly hire the expert Journal commenters because they have all the answers when it comes to rocket science. The solar system will be colonized in no time at all!
@socmot Слава Україні!: Werner von Braun told NASA everything I’ve been advocating in the 1960s, but the US government didn’t want a space program they wanted to land a man on the moon and bring them back safely by the end of the decade – nothing more.
They were so short of ideas on what to do next that Alan Shepherd took golf balls to knock around on the moon in Apollo 14.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: Alan Shepherd hit golf balls on the moon just for fun, not because of any shortage of ideas. Your comment is ignorant of the facts.
Can someone arrange to put Harris on that rocket
@Jonathan O’Riordan: That’s so irrelevant, it’s just sad
Rome wasn’t built in a day ..
Wow, they really dont make things like they used to, do they? I bet all those aeronautic engineers and the old school NASA people are tutting and shaking their heads
@Pauline Gallagher:
@Pauline Gallagher: I doubt anyone would be shaking their heads. This is the most complex mahine ever built. Don’t forget, before Apollo even got off the pad 3 Astronauts lost their lives in a ground test fire. This thing won’t go until its safe.
@Pauline Gallagher: It has always been perfectly normal during rocket programmes around the world for launch delays to occur. It’s an intrinsic part of the sheer complexity of what they’re doing. This was recognised in the pre-launch day announcement of various appropriate launch windows on August 29th, and September 2nd and 5th.
Whack, whack! Right…try her now!
Sorry, but exactly is an unscrewed rocket? Wishful thinking?
@David Stapleton: ha, I forgot to write, what is an un…
@David Stapleton: no screws used in the building process….only duck tape.
@David Stapleton: Due to an engine problem this rocket is screwed, When they get it fixed it will be unscrewed.
Launch scrubbed for today because of an engine issue.
Bloody hell, it’s dear enough
They should just send a woman of colour. Two birds and all that. It could save them millions.
They Clearly don’t have the right stuff …”sort out your little problem and light this candle!”
I aM aNgRy ANd OffENdeD aBoUt THis RoCkET. JefF mUSk anD ELoN bEZoZ are DEsTrOyINg tHe TRans Bi AStro-BinArY GeNDeR RiGHtS. I KnOw NoThINg about SpACe buT I HaVE RiGHts and, and, and, WhaT ABout, WHAt ABouT JOe DUffY, GREEn PArtY, HOmeLesSNEss, PhAlliC RoCkET, LGbQrSTuV +1 Sic
Aaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrggghhhh!!
Lol
I aM aNgRy ANd OffENdeD aBoUt THis RoCkET. JefF mUSk anD ELoN bEZoZ are DEsTrOyINg tHe TRans Bi AStro-BinArY GeNDeR RiGHtS. I KnOw NoThINg about SpACe buT I HaVE RiGHts and, and, and, WhaT ABout, WHAt ABouT JOe DUffY, GREEn PArtY, HOmeLesSNEss, PhAlliC RoCkET, LGbQrSTuV +1 Sic
Aaaaaaaaaaaagghhhhrrrrrrrrrgggghhhh
Lol
To the Moon! WA WA WA WAA~
A sane approach would look a bit like this.
First develop a man rated, long Life orbital transfer vehicle (space tug) perhaps 20-30 tonne dry mass. Launch on Falcon Heavy or similar leave on orbit ready for use.
Second a fuel tanker of similar size to carry fuel to orbit – same launcher.
Third a reusable lunar lander of around the same size, this will live on the moon or in lunar orbit.
Launch crew and supplies just like an ISS supply run.
OTV and lander hook up (perhaps a fuel tanker or two) and transfer to lunar orbit. Use lander to go down to the moon and back.
Return to earth orbit in OTV leaving lander for next visit and ride down in a Dragon or similar.
No new launchers needed, no new crew launch and return vehicles. Cheap incremental and reusable for Mars etc.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: the original idea/plan to go to the moon that was conceptualised in the 40s/50s was to first get into space, then build a space base from which they would do exactly what you described above and land on the Moon and Mars. In the 60s, in a rush to beat the Russians to the moon the middle bit of the idea was ditched in an all out effort to get to the Moon first. Later the shuttle and ISS were sort of call backs to the original concept.
@SPQH: Yep, it was the right approach then provided the goal was to explore and exploit space. It still is because nothing important has changed. But that was never America’s goal and it looks like it still isn’t.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: Your so-called sane approach are decades-old, derivative concepts.
have your say