Home Future Storm forces NASA to postpone rocket launch to the moon again

Storm forces NASA to postpone rocket launch to the moon again

NASA announced Tuesday that it has again delayed sending its unmanned mission to the moon, this time because of Tropical Storm Nicole, which is moving toward the east coast of Florida.

The launch attempt, initially scheduled for November 14, is now planned for November 16, Jim Free, a senior official at the US space agency, said on Twitter.

NASA had already aborted two launch attempts for its Artemis 1 mission, in late August and September.

“Adjusting our release date for Artemis 1 prioritizes employee safety and allows our team to meet the needs of their families and homes,” wrote Free, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development.

The storm, currently located over the Atlantic Ocean, is predicted to become a hurricane on Wednesday near the Bahamas, and then reach Florida later in the day or early Thursday morning, according to the National Center of Hurricanes (NHC), based in Miami.

A hurricane watch has already been issued for the coast, where the Kennedy Space Center is located, where the rocket will depart.

As Nicole strengthens, NASA “has decided to reschedule the launch of the Artemis 1 mission to Wednesday, November 16, pending safe conditions for employees to return to work, as well as post-storm inspections,” the agency said in a statement. this tuesday.

The launch window opens at 01:04 am local time (03:04 GMT) on November 16, with a second security date set for November 19.

On Monday, NASA announced that it had decided, based on available forecasts, to leave the rocket on its launch pad, where it was placed just a few days ago.

The 98-meter-tall SLS rocket had to be returned in late September to its assembly facility, a few kilometers away, to be protected from Hurricane Ian.

The cost of the rocket, which never took off and whose launch was canceled at the last minute twice in recent months due to technical problems, is estimated at several billion dollars.

The Artemis 1 test mission, with no crew on board, will mark the first flight of the United States’ flagship program back to the Moon.

In its next steps, the Artemis program aims to put the first woman and first black person on the Moon, but not before 2025.

NASA also wants to establish a lasting human presence there, which would include building a space station in orbit around the Moon. For the space agency, this is a necessary step in planning the first manned trip to Mars.

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