During Monday night, the rocket began refueling, a process that had to be paused because a leak was detected in the same spot where one of them was discovered during a countdown test last spring.
A number of fixes have been made to address the issue.
Refueling was already an hour late before being canceled due to thunderstorms that swept through Merritt Island in the Florida coastline on Sunday — the day before NASA sent an Artemis 1 rocket to the moon on Monday.
NASA said the rocket, capsule or other equipment on the ground was not damaged during the storm. Although more storms are expected, NASA expects to be able to send its rocket on Monday — 50 years after Apollo 17 made the last manned flight to the moon.
Tens of thousands of people, including Vice President Kamala Harris, headed to the launch site in Cape Canaveral to follow the rocket’s flight.
Artemis 1 is a test of future manned missions to the Moon. On board at launch, there were only three humanoid dolls present. If all goes well, NASA hopes to send the first female astronauts to the Moon by 2025 at the earliest.
The postponement is scheduled for 14.33 pm (Sweden time). If he has to cancel, a postponement is planned for Friday instead.
The Artemis program is part of NASA’s plan to return humans to the Moon, ahead of a possible trip to Mars.
Twelve astronauts, all men, visited the moon during a total of six flights during the 1969-1972 Apollo program. The goal now is to put the first woman and first non-white person on the moon.
The first launch is scheduled for 08:33 (14:33 Swedish time) on Monday local time from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mannequins, equipped with sensors, replace the crew. The craft will enter lunar orbit without landing on the planet.
The next launch is scheduled for 2024. Artemis 2 will be operational, but until then there will be no moon landing.
The third launch will be the first manned landing on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. For the first time, NASA will land a spacecraft at the Moon’s south pole, where water has been detected as ice. The launch is expected to take place in 2025 but may be delayed until 2026. The purpose is to establish a base camp on the Moon.
Source: Agence France-Presse
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