NASA will take one other stab at a vital take a look at of its Artemis 1 moon mission this weekend.
The company started the Artemis 1 “wet dress rehearsal” — a follow run of an important prelaunch actions, together with rocket fueling — final Friday (April 1) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Everything was imagined to wrap up about 48 hours later, however that did not occur; the Artemis 1 workforce ran into several issues, which ended up delaying the take a look at.
Early this week, that delay turned into a halt, which was known as to accommodate Ax-1, a non-public astronaut mission to the International Space Station that launched today (April 8) from a neighboring pad at KSC. With Ax-1 now safely on its manner, the Artemis 1 moist gown can rise up and working once more.
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NASA goals to renew the take a look at with a “call to stations” at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) on Saturday (April 9), NASA officers wrote in a blog post yesterday (opens in new tab) (April 7). If the whole lot goes based on plan, fueling of Artemis 1’s large Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will happen on Monday (April 11), as will a number of follow countdowns.
The mission workforce will work towards a simulated launch time of two:40 p.m. EDT (1840 GMT) on Monday. The take a look at will wind down after that with actions akin to draining propellant from the SLS’ tanks.
But this timeline is tentative, company officers careworn.
“Teams continue to troubleshoot and refine the test schedule to account for insights gained during the previous runs and activities,” officers with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems program said via Twitter yesterday (opens in new tab).
Artemis 1, the first-ever flight of the SLS and of NASA’s Artemis program of lunar exploration, will ship an uncrewed Orion capsule on a roughly month-long mission across the moon. The mission is predicted to launch in June or thereabouts; NASA will not set a goal date till the moist gown rehearsal is over and groups have analyzed the ensuing information.
If all goes properly with Artemis 1, Artemis 2 will launch astronauts on an identical around-the-moon mission in 2024, and Artemis 3 will land astronauts close to the lunar south pole in 2025 or 2026.
Mike Wall is the writer of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a guide concerning the seek for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
