​NASA will try again to launch the SLS rocket that will send the Orion capsule around the moon as part of the Artemis 1 mission. The agency said it was unable to launch Monday because of a faulty sensor that falsely indicated that Engine 3 had not fired – it would cool to the required temperature. The launch should take place between 21:17 and 23:17 Romanian time (14:17 – 16:17 in Florida).

We are facing a historic moment. NASA launches the first rocket of the Artemis program, which in a few years will return astronauts to the surface of the moon, after a 50-year hiatus. The unmanned Orion capsule will arrive at the moon in a few days, and the mission will last 42 days. Artemis is a program that could eventually be worth nearly $100 billion, and the first big step will be taken in the next few hours.

“We have no guarantee that we will be able to launch on Saturday, but we will try,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission director. If it doesn’t work out on Saturday, there is only one option – September 5. The rocket will then need to be taken to the hangar for inspection, and a new launch will be possible in a few weeks.

Why only then? Because the battery of the pyrotechnic system of the Federal Tax Service needs to be recharged. FTS (Flight Termination System) is a system that allows a missile to be deliberately detonated if it deviates too much from its trajectory immediately after launch to avoid it flying towards populated areas or beyond the flight path.

It should be said that the engines on the SLS rocket are part of NASA’s inventory and have powered space shuttles in the past. These are the engines that have been used on past space shuttle flights (over 20 flights in total), but unfortunately, the Artemis mission will not have the engines recovered, but will fall into the Pacific Ocean after the first stage fuel is exhausted. was used completed

The SLS rocket has four RS-25 engines and two auxiliary boosters. The main stage tanks will contain a total of 3.3 million liters of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

The Orion capsule is also not new: it was built almost 20 years ago, but the cancellation of the Constellation program in 2010 meant that Orion could not go into space. After a series of modifications, Orion will arrive in space and be essential to the Artemis program, provided it can be successfully recovered and thus safely in ocean waters.

In the capsule will not be people, but three mannequins: Helga, Zohar and Commander Munikin Campos, two mannequins equipped with plastic models of human organs, the purpose of which is to measure the effects of cosmic radiation on future astronauts.

The rocket could not be launched on August 29 because Engine 3 was showing a higher temperature than usual, and engineers were trying to figure out why it was not cooling down enough. After analyzing the data, it turned out that the fault was actually a faulty sensor, and the problem was not serious enough to require the rocket to be transported to the hangar.

You can’t replace the sensor on the launch pad, so they’ll leave it there, but ignore the false data it’s sending.

The Artemis 1 mission will last 42 days, and the Orion capsule should reach a distance of 450,000 km from Earth.