After Hurricane Ian forced NASA to bring its mammoth rocket back into its hangar at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida late last month, the space agency has scheduled a date for another attempt to launch its Artemis I mission, reported CNN.
NASA said on Wednesday that the Space Launch System’s (SLS) 69-minute launch window will open at 12:07 am ET on Monday, November 14.
If the launch goes well, NASA will send an unmanned Orion spacecraft around the moon and back to earth for a series of tests. For your information, the rocket is 322.2 feet tall. There will be a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, December 9 after a mission duration of 25 days.
The space agency said that they needed “minimal work” to get the rocket and Orion spacecraft ready to roll out to the launch pad. This is a slow, 4-mile (6.4 kilometres) trip that could happen as soon as Friday, November 4.
The return of humans to the moon for the first time in half a century is the overarching objective of the Artemis programme developed by NASA.
The Artemis I mission is anticipated to be the first of many. It will lay the initial groundwork by conducting tests of the rocket and spacecraft and all of its components. This is to guarantee that it’s secure enough for astronauts to fly.
However, launching this initial expedition has been challenging. The first two attempts failed because of technical issues. The third also failed because of Hurricane Ian.
NASA reported that it had asked for two additional launch windows on November 16 and 19 at 1:04 and 1:45 am respectively.
Source: CNN