NASA’s moon rocket at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Monday
Image: Reuters
The American space agency canceled the start of its moon mission shortly before. Apparently there are several technical problems, including one of the rocket engines.
DNASA has canceled the start of its Artemis moon mission scheduled for Monday. The US space agency said the reason was technical problems with one of the rocket engines. It has not yet reached the required target temperature, spokesman Derrol Nail said on Monday about half an hour before the scheduled start. It is being tried with the help of several calculation models to solve the problem, it said. The Bloomberg news agency also reported a crack in the main body of the rocket.
The start is currently stopped unplanned, Nasa announced on Twitter about twenty minutes before the start of the launch period. The next possible start dates are now next Friday and Monday next week.
The unmanned test flight of the “Artemis” mission, which will last around 40 days, is intended to herald the return to manned flights to the moon. NASA wants to send people there again in 2025 at the earliest, including a woman and a non-white person for the first time. Problems had already arisen with earlier tests and the original schedule had been delayed.