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For NASA’s Moon rocket to finally blast off on Saturday the stars appear to be aligned, with weather forecasts favorable and technical issues that postponed the launch earlier this week resolved.

For 2:17 pm local time (1817 GMT) Liftoff is scheduled, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, for up to a two-hour delay with the potential if necessary. 

On Thursday evening the chance for favorable weather conditions within that window sat at 60 percent.

Melody Lovin forecast analyst said at a press conference that “The weather looks good,” and isn’t expected to be a “showstopper,”.

During its originally scheduled window on Monday NASA has also been working to correct the technical difficulties that lead to the last-minute delay of the launch.

It seemed that one of the rocket’s four main engines was too hot, at first, though just to be a reading from a “bad sensor” it turned out, the rocket’s program manager John Honeycutt said Thursday.

A fuel tank leak had to be patched, in the future, the incorrect information will simply be ignored. 

The launch director, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, said, “We were able to find what we believe is the source of the leak and correct that”.  

The unscrewed test flight is the Artemis 1 mission. For the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket it will be the first launch, the most powerful in the world and which has been in development for more than a decade.

Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin said on Saturday that “There’s no guarantee that we’re going to get off, but we’re going to try,”.

The Orion capsule fixed atop the rocket will spend 37 days in space, if the mission goes ahead Saturday, orbiting the Moon from about 60 miles (100 kilometres) away. 

Since the space agency last launched almost 50 years ago, a vehicle designed to carry people to the moon. NASA has named its new moon program Artemis, after the twin sister of the Greek god Apollo at the earliest in 2025, and has thinked to putting the first person and first woman of colour on the lunar surface.

NASA hopes to test technology someday meant for sending humans to Mars, with the new flagship program.

During its long-anticipated first mission no astronauts will be on board the Artemis rocket, but this flight will be a critical test of how NASA’s new vehicle will perform in space and return to Earth during the fiery return. 

Once this rocket successfully lifts off, on a journey to orbit the moon it will send a crew capsule called Orion, coming within about 60 miles of the lunar surface. It will return home and splash down in the Pacific Ocean, after more than five weeks.  

Moreover, with this rocket the next flight will carry people, but it isn’t scheduled until 2024. A 2025 moon landing the agency is targeting although most space watchers expect delays, as this rocket is already years behind its original schedule. In 2016 Congress had wanted it to fly, just five years after NASA retired its aging fleet of space shuttles. 

Despite the most recent Artemis 1 delays, Nelson said on Saturday that NASA was still planning to launch Artemis 2 in 2024 and Artemis 3 in 2025.

Critics say if NASA depends on this rocket and capsule the Artemis program will be too expensive to be sustainable, which comes with a hefty price tag. More than $4 billion each of the first few flights will cost, and that doesn’t include billions of dollars in development, said NASA’s inspector general. 

This rocket is expected to have its first flight soon and is designed to be both reusable and inexpensive. To develop Star ship as a lunar lander NASA has already said it will rely on SpaceX, to get its astronauts from lunar orbit down to the surface. 

Source:- https://newsmktcap.com/nasa-scrubs-the-launch-attempt-for-its-saturday-moon-rocket/

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