UNITED STATES: On August 29, September 2, or September 5, NASA could launch the most powerful rocket ever.
According to a statement issued by NASA on Wednesday, the maiden flight of the massive Space Launch System rocket might occur as soon as late August.
Agency representatives emphasised that the dates are simply estimations and are contingent on teams finishing all outstanding work.
Jim Free, associate administrator for exploration systems development at NASA, stated during a media conference that “it’s not an official commitment.”
“We’ll make the agency commitment just a little over a week before launch during the flight readiness review. However, these are the dates that the team is aiming for and planning to meet.”
The following are the potential launch dates: August 29 for a 42-day mission, with a two-hour launch window beginning at 8:33 AM EST.
September 2 for a 39-day mission, with a two-hour launch window starting at 12:48 PM EST.
September 5, for a 42-day mission, with a 90-minute launch window opening at 5:12 PM EST.
That implies that if all goes as planned, NASA will launch SLS on August 18 from the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center.
Even a speculative launch date indicates that NASA is on schedule to finish the last-minute tasks necessary to prepare SLS and Orion.
This capsule will be atop the rocket for launch. As part of it, the hydrogen leak that was discovered during the rocket’s final wet dress rehearsal and that prompted officials to halt the final countdown earlier than anticipated must be fixed.
NASA has also been hard at work installing the crucial flight termination mechanism, which will guarantee that the mission can be safely terminated if it needs to be after takeoff for whatever reason.
The agency’s ambitious program began with this unmanned launch, known as Artemis I, and will continue with several other flights. The Artemis program aims to send people back to the moon by the middle of the next decade.
The agency views Artemis as the start of a fresh era in space exploration, one that might lead people deeper into the solar system than ever before.
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