Aerospace
why NASA cancelled its Artemis 1 moon mission launch at the last moment
The NASA Artemis 1 moon mission was supposed to launch on August 29 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, however, NASA had to cancel the lunar test flight. This occurred as a result of a leak in one of the unmanned spacecraft’s four RS-25 engines. The mission was to settle on the moon in six weeks.
The night before the launch, the Artemis 1 lunar mission was delayed. Overnight operations to fill the rocket with more than three million liters of extremely cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen were temporarily paused due to a high risk of lightning, but they resumed an hour later. Another delay was caused at about 3:30 AM when a potential leak was seen as the main stage was being fueled with hydrogen.
A problem with the rocket’s main engine, RS-25, was found forty minutes before liftoff. When the launch team began putting liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellants in the rocket’s core fuel tanks, NASA claims they first became aware of the engine bleed.
Cryogenic fuel had to be “conditioned” into the four RS-25 engines utilized in the rocket’s core stage in order to get them ready for takeoff. However, one of these engines was unable to keep the appropriate cooling temperature as NASA had anticipated.
Nelson said on Saturday that despite the most recent Artemis 1 delays, NASA was still planning to launch Artemis 2 in 2024 and Artemis 3 in 2025.
If NASA relies on this rocket and capsule, which have a high price tag, critics claim the Artemis program will be too expensive to be financially viable. Each of the initial flights, according to NASA’s inspector general, will cost more than $4 billion, not including the enormous sums spent on research and development.
