NASA: Artemis I a go for August launch of around-the-moon mission ( yhaoo!news )

NASA is pushing ahead toward a late August launch of its giant moon rocket from the Kennedy Space Center, despite not fully completing a "wet dress rehearsal" Monday.

NASA officials have reviewed the data collected during the test run and decided that a leaky hydrogen valve was not significant enough to force a delay in the launch of Artemis I, an uncrewed mission planning to orbit the moon and return to Earth. It's the first step toward putting humans back on the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.

NASA officials said they will roll the massive Space Launch System rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building where the faulty valve will be replaced. They are expected to release more details at a teleconference later today.

Monday's test run was the fourth "wet dress rehearsal" for the rocket. Three previous tries back in April all failed to completely fuel the rocket.

Monday's countdown was scheduled to go through to T-9.3 seconds. But the hydrogen leak forced a hold at T-10 minutes while engineers tried to find a way to stop the leak. While they couldn't stop the leak, agency officials decided to push on with the test as if everything was OK. But when the rocket's onboard computers took over the final countdown sequence it detected the leak and shut down the countdown at T-23 seconds.

Still, NASA was able to meet its most important part of the test: completely filling the rocket's tanks with hundreds of thousands of gallons of super-cooled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

After replacing the hardware responsible for the valve leak, NASA will set a firm launch date for Artemis 1.

If successful, it would set up NASA's Artemis II mission,which would return humans to lunar orbit for the first time since 1972.

The agency's Artemis III mission, which would return humans all the way to the lunar surface is slated to launch no earlier than 2025. NASA has said the mission will include the first woman and first person of color to walk on the moon.

Jhon McCarthy - Florida Today

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