When Is Nasa Going to the Moon Again
NASA's Artemis one moon mission rocket faces new delays
NASA'due south first Artemis moon mission volition have to wait to launch.
The rollout for the bureau'due south Artemis 1 mission, the first flight of its Artemis program that will ultimately render humans to the moon, has been pushed back. NASA announced Wednesday (Feb. 2) that the agency'south Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket and Orion capsule won't curlicue out to Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Infinite Eye until sometime in March.
"Ultimately, we're going to launch this flight hardware when the flight hardware is ready and when the team's ready," Mike Bolger, the programme manager of exploration ground systems at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, told Space.com during a news conference held today.
Related: NASA'due south Artemis 1 moon mission explained in photos
"While the teams are not working any major issues, NASA has added additional fourth dimension to consummate closeout activities within the VAB [Vehicle Associates Building] prior to rolling the rocket out for the first time," agency officials wrote well-nigh the delay in a argument.
While the squad has non yet announced a new date for rollout, "Right now, we're kind of looking at mid-March," Tom Whitmeyer, the deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C., said during the conference. "We'll get a little bit closer to the concluding close-out and then we'll exist in a better position to target a specific date."
Once the rollout to the pad is successfully completed, the adjacent step toward launch will exist a wet dress rehearsal. This process will see the mission team simulate every step of the launch (except for the launch itself), even including fueling the rocket.
During the news conference, Bolger and other experts at NASA working on the mission said that at that place was no one singular reason that caused this delay, but rather the combined difficulties of bringing a complicated mission like this to launch successfully.
"Logistically, it'due south a very difficult thing," Whitmeyer said.
"We're taking it i step at a time," Bolger said. "We're doing it very meticulously, and we're proud of the progress that we've made."
Bolger added that, over the by several months, the team has conducted significant testing with the flying hardware for both SLS and Orion. They have assembled and stacked the flight elements at Kennedy'due south Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), powered the pair up, tested flying software and the mission'south communication systems. "And nosotros're currently installing and testing the flight termination systems of the launch vehicle," Bolger said.
Bolger added that, in improver to the team wanting to be meticulous, the mission has faced some minor issues including the ongoing coronavirus pandemic likewise equally the recent unusually common cold temperatures in Florida.
"This past weekend, we were somewhat impacted past the cold temperatures," Bolger said. "The VAB is a actually big building and it's not heated, and some of the 'goos and glues,' [as] we say ... are affected past the temperatures."
But, he added, "for the most part in the VAB, we really aren't impacted by what's going on in the environment around us and nosotros're able to kind of work our way through it."
As the new engagement for rollout is non yet known, it is also unclear how the launch engagement for the Artemis one mission, which was previously as well gear up for March, might be impacted.
While he was not able to give concrete dates when Artemis 1 might now launch, Mike Sarafin, Artemis one mission director at NASA Headquarters, said during the news conference that if the launch is pushed to Apr or May, a launch window would extend from Apr 8 to Apr 23; some other would open May vii and close May 21.
Artemis 1 volition be the start of NASA's Artemis missions, which the agency plans will eventually land humans back on the moon every bit part of a long-term goal for a sustainable lunar presence. This volition be the first time that NASA, or anyone else, will send humans to the moon's surface since the agency'due south last Apollo mission in 1972.
This kickoff mission will be uncrewed and will see the Orion spacecraft make it by the moon before returning to Earth; testing the technology that will one day soon bear humans.
Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd . Follow u.s.a. on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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Chelsea "Foxanne" Gohd joined Infinite.com in 2018 and is now a Senior Author, writing most everything from climate change to planetary science and homo spaceflight in both articles and on-photographic camera in videos. With a caste in Public Health and biological sciences, Chelsea has written and worked for institutions including the American Museum of Natural History, Scientific American, Detect Magazine Blog, Astronomy Mag and Live Science. When not writing, editing or filming something infinite-y, Chelsea "Foxanne" Gohd is writing music and performing every bit Foxanne, even launching a song to space in 2021 with Inspiration4. You can follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd and @foxannemusic.
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Source: https://www.space.com/nasa-artemis-1-mission-rollout-delay
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