NASA's manned moon mission: Artemis-2 now scheduled to launch April 1
It's scheduled for April: for the first time in over half a century, humans are to fly to the moon again.
The moon behind the moon rocket SLS
(Image: NASA/Brandon Hancock)
NASA wants to roll the giant SLS rocket back onto the launch pad next Thursday: If everything goes well during and after that, the first manned flight to the moon is scheduled to launch on April 1. The US space agency announced this now and explained that the flight readiness review was successfully completed yesterday, Thursday. Should the now-targeted launch date for the Artemis-2 mission not be met, there will be further launch windows on the five following days. Otherwise, the mission could also launch on April 30. Before the release that has now occurred, engineers determined that a seal was responsible for the problems during the most recent dress rehearsal, and repaired the component.
Cause of problem fixed
At the end of February, the second dress rehearsal for fueling the rocket was completed. It was not possible to properly fuel the upper stage with helium. According to the NASA chief, the problem had already occurred during Artemis-1. To find the cause, the giant rocket had to be returned to the assembly building, and the crew was allowed to leave quarantine. Last week, the US space agency then announced that a quick connector had been removed, on which a seal had been hindering the flow of helium. The system was then reassembled. On this occasion, other rocket systems were also refreshed.
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With Artemis-2, NASA wants to fly humans to the moon again and orbit it. The launch was initially planned for February 6, but there was the first postponement to March. The crew consists of Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch from NASA, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen. On their ten-day flight, they will first orbit the Earth and then accelerate towards the Earth's moon. Four days are allocated for the flight there. If everything works out, Artemis-3 is scheduled to launch next year as a mission without a moon landing, before humans are expected to land on the moon in 2028. In the first mission of the ambitious Artemis program, an unmanned capsule orbited the moon in the fall of 2022.
(mho)
