Moon Mission Setback : Nasa has postponed its historic mission of sending astronauts around the moon and back, due to issues discovered during a key test of its most powerful rocket yet. Although originally scheduled to launch its Artemis II mission from Kennedy Space Center in Florida as soon as next week, Nasa announced overnight that its launch has been postponed until March without specifying when exactly. During an elaborate launch-day walkthrough known as a “wet dress rehearsal”, engineers noticed leaking hydrogen in Space Launch System’s spacecraft; additionally teams discovered issues related to Orion capsule which will host four astronauts during a 10-day journey around Earth and back home again.
Nasa stated in their announcement that “engineers successfully navigated through several challenges during the two-day test” of its 98-metre rocket. As Nasa noted, teams will review data collected during this trial run of their spaceship. This news may come as a blow to crew who had been quarantined for close to two weeks prior to entering space – while Christina Koch and Victor Glover will become first woman and first person of color respectively to travel beyond low Earth orbit.
Nasa will launch their SLS rocket again for Artemis II after its uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022, which was marred by hydrogen leaks during tests. For Artemis II, crewed astronauts will not reach lunar orbit but will complete the first 685,000-mile roundtrip since Apollo 17’s journey around the moon in 1972 – making history and setting up Artemis III, aiming to land near lunar south pole. Nasa wants to eventually establish permanent presence on lunar surface through Artemis as part of its Artemis programme – named after Greek goddess Artemis who twin sister is twin sister of Apollo Apollo!
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Reid Wiseman, who spent months living and working on the International Space Station, has been chosen as Commander of Artemis II. Canadian physicist and fighter pilot Jeremy Hansen is also part of its crew. Hansen will become the first non-US astronaut to travel beyond low Earth orbit if her trip ends successfully. On Tuesday night during her overnight test flight, more than 2.6m litres (700,000 gallons) of super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen had to flow into tanks, simulating real life countdown conditions. Due to a delay, Nasa said that due to this setback her crew would reenter quarantine two weeks prior to any launch window opening up between February and the end of April.
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