NASA’s Artemis 1 launch has been postponed due to a malfunctioning RS-25 engine on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The US Space Agency stated that the next launch would be available for Friday, as per the slots planned earlier.
Shortly after the launch was scrubbed engineers were engaged for troubleshooting issue conditioning one of the RS-25 engines (engine 3) on the bottom of the core stage and assesed what appeared to be a crack in the thermal protection system material on one of the flanges on the core stage.
This is a very complicated machine, a very complicated system, and all those things have to work, and you don’t want to light the candle until it’s ready to go,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The team had cited feul leakage and engine failure.
The world’s most powerful rocket Artemis 1 was planned to lift off with the Orion spacecraft on a 42-day-long journey that takes it 60,000 kilometers beyond the Moon and back.
The rocket was to bring the U.S. a big step closer to putting astronauts back on the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo program ended 50 years ago. The launch, when it happens, will be the first flight in NASA’s 21st-century moon-exploration program, named Artemis after Apollo’s mythological twin sister.