NASA fuels moon rocket in crucial test to decide when Artemis astronauts will launch

NASA is fueling its caller satellite rocket successful 1 last make-or-break trial earlier sending astronauts connected a lunar fly-around

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA fueled its caller satellite rocket successful 1 last make-or-break trial Monday, with hopes of sending astronauts connected a lunar fly-around arsenic soon arsenic this coming weekend.

The motorboat squad began loading the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket with super-cold hydrogen and oxygen astatine Kennedy Space Center precocious astatine midday. More than 700,000 gallons (2.6 cardinal liters) had to travel into the tanks and stay connected committee for respective hours, mimicking the last stages of an existent countdown.

The lone happening missing from the captious formal rehearsal was the crew. The 3 Americans and 1 Canadian monitored the enactment from astir 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) distant successful Houston, location to Johnson Space Center. They person been successful quarantine for the past 1½ weeks, awaiting the signifier countdown's outcome.

The all-day cognition volition find erstwhile they tin blast disconnected connected the archetypal lunar voyage by a unit successful much than fractional a century.

Running 2 days down due to the fact that of a bitter acold snap, NASA acceptable its countdown clocks to halt a half-minute earlier reaching zero, conscionable earlier motor ignition. The clocks began ticking Saturday night, giving motorboat controllers the accidental to spell done each the motions and woody with immoderate lingering problems with the Space Launch System rocket. Hydrogen leaks kept the archetypal SLS rocket connected the pad for months successful 2022. Launch managers said they're assured the issues are down them.

If the fueling demo goes well, NASA could motorboat commandant Reid Wiseman and his unit to the satellite arsenic soon arsenic Sunday. The rocket indispensable beryllium flying by Feb. 11 oregon the ngo volition beryllium called disconnected until March. The abstraction bureau lone has a fewer days successful immoderate fixed period to motorboat the rocket, and the utmost acold already has shortened February’s motorboat model by 2 days.

The astir 10-day ngo volition nonstop the astronauts past the moon, astir the mysterious acold broadside and past consecutive backmost to Earth, with the extremity of investigating the capsule's beingness enactment and different captious systems. The unit volition not spell into lunar orbit oregon effort to land.

NASA past sent astronauts to the satellite during the 1960s and 1970s Apollo program. The caller Artemis programme aims for a much sustained lunar presence, with Wiseman’s unit mounting the signifier for aboriginal satellite landings by different astronauts.

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