National Aeronautical Space Agency (NASA)’s history-making spaceflight has been delayed. A technical glitch in the rocket’s engine made the U.S. space agency scrub the lunar-orbit launch mission on Monday.
The space agency attributed the delay to engine-related problems and said the team “could not get the rocket’s engines to the proper temperature range required to start the engines at liftoff.” And the problem was further complicated by a leak in a valve that helps adjust pressure.
The Artemis 1’s Space Launch System (SLS) has four engines that must be conditioned for extreme temperatures as super cold propellant begin flowing through them for liftoff. NASA noted that the problem was spotted in engine 3, and that it had more to do with the plumbing than with the engine itself. The space agency has not set a date yet for the next launch attempt, but the earliest possible opportunity would be on September 2.
Putting the technical glitch and plumbing issues aside, the Artemis 1 mission will be the first in a series of lunar flights that would pave the way for the first woman and first person of colour to land on the lunar surface before the end of this decade.
In this specific trip to the moon, possibly starting on September 2, there won’t be any humans on board. But, three high-tech mannequins will be flying to Earth’s natural satellite to test how human bodies will respond to space travel.
The mannequins -- Helga, Zohar and Moonikin Campos -- will be equipped with sensors to measure effects of radiation in space. The data trio gather will be analysed and used when real astronauts are flown to the moon in future.
Artemis is said to be the next generation of lunar missions. In this first mission, robots will be sent to space to gather data for analysis. After this, Artemis 2 will send humans to moon, and the third mission will likely land the first woman and first person of colour on the lunar surface. And once these are accomplished successfully, the lunar surface could become the gateway to Mars in the future space travels.
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