NASA will try again this Saturday to launch Artemis 1 to the Moon, five days after an engine failure

• ANGEL DIAZ

  Madrid

Updated Friday, September 2, 2022-19:17

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The first mission of NASA's new plan to return to the Moon will have a new opportunity this Saturday to take off, if the weather does not prevent it, from the Kennedy Space Center in

, Florida.

The launch, whose first and failed attempt was made on Monday, August 29, will try to bring the

to a distance of 96 kilometers from the Moon, after which it will return to Earth and splash down on the Pacific Ocean.

The main objective is to show that the trip, which will not have a crew, can be carried out safely.

All eyes will be on the

(SLS) rocket, the most powerful ever built, one of whose engines caused the countdown to be canceled last Monday.

The reason was that the third of the four engines that propel the SLS failed to cool down sufficiently, but the engineers have reviewed the problem these days and now attribute it to

, so they consider that the mission is ready. to start.

If all goes according to plan, NASA will try to send astronauts to explore the lunar surface in the coming years,

.

No one has done it since 1972, half a century ago.

The current mission, called

, is relatively unambitious, in the sense that it is unmanned and will not carry out major scientific experiments.

The truly historic mission will be, if all goes well, Artemis 3, the first in which we could again see American astronauts stepping on the Earth's satellite.

NASA's plan is to introduce its next lunar astronaut crews after Artemis 1 is successfully concluded.

It has already announced that there will be at least one woman and one person of color.

The second launch attempt of this preliminary mission is scheduled for

p.m. CEST on Saturday, with a launch window that will last for two hours.

That is, until 22.17.

According to the latest weather forecasts, conditions will be favorable with a 60% probability.

"

it," said Mike Serafin, head of the Artemis mission, during a press conference on Thursday.

Some mannequins equipped with sensors will be in charge of demonstrating that the round trip is still viable, with a technology very different from that used in the Apollo program.

In the course of those first lunar exploration missions,

(the Apollo 1 crew) lost their lives, while three others (the Apollo 13 astronauts) almost lost their lives, although they were saved thanks to an impressive display of intelligence. , cold-blooded and ability to work as a team.

One day before the new launch attempt, those responsible for the Artemis mission have recognized the legacy of the Apollo program on their official Twitter account: "As we anticipate the Artemis 1 mission, it is always important to reflect on the Apollo missions that brought us here. We

."

With much less at stake in this first mission, but with the illusion of being able to set foot on the Moon again, NASA faces this Saturday its own past and the need to give impetus to a plan that, since it was

, in 2005, has not met any of the deadlines originally set.

This Saturday, however, the hope of those responsible for the mission is that everything starts to go smoothly: "We have had time to

, comparing multiple sources of information and carrying out independent analyzes that have confirmed that it was a failed sensor," said John Honeycutt, SLS program manager at Marshall Space Flight Center.

To know more

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NASA delays the launch of Artemis 1, which was scheduled to travel to the Moon, after detecting a technical problem

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The new NASA rocket launch attempt to the Moon will be on Saturday

• Editorial: AFP |

  THE WORLD Kennedy Space Center (USA)

The new NASA rocket launch attempt to the Moon will be on Saturday

"We must introduce ourselves, we must be prepared, and

," Serafin summed up.

If it has to be suspended again, there would be a new opportunity to try the launch next Tuesday, September 5.

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