CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – NASA’s new moon rocket remained on track for liftoff on a crucial test flight Monday, despite a series of lightning strikes on the launch pad.
The 322foot (98meter) Space Launch System rocket is the most powerful ever built by NASA. It’s ready to send an empty crew capsule into lunar orbit, half a century after NASA’s Apollo program landed 12 astronauts on the moon.
Astronauts could return to the moon within a few years, if this sixweek test flight goes well. NASA officials warn, however, that the risks are high and the flight could be disrupted.
Instead of the astronauts, three test dummies are strapped to the Orion capsule to measure vibration, acceleration and radiation, one of the biggest dangers to humans in deep space. The capsule alone has over 1,000 sensors.
Officials said Sunday that neither the rocket nor the capsule suffered any damage during Saturday’s storm; The ground team was also unaffected. Five strikes were confirmed to have struck the 600foot (183meter) lightning protection towers surrounding the rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The strikes were not strong enough to warrant a major retest.
“Clearly, the system worked as designed,” said Jeff Spaulding, NASA’s senior test manager.
More storms were expected. Although forecasters gave an 80 percent chance of acceptable weather Monday morning, conditions were expected to deteriorate during the twohour launch window.
On the technical side, Spaulding said the team did everything they could over the past few months to eliminate persistent fuel leaks. A couple of countdown tests earlier this year resulted in repairs to leaking valves and other faulty equipment; the engineers won’t know if all the fixes are good until a few hours before the scheduled takeoff. If it doesn’t come out on Monday, the next release attempt would be on Friday.
After so many years of delays and setbacks, the launch team was thrilled to finally be so close to the inaugural flight of the Artemis moon exploration program, named after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology.
“We’re 24 hours away from launch right now, which is pretty amazing for where we’ve been on this journey,” Spaulding told reporters.
The subsequent Artemis flight, as early as 2024, would see four astronauts flying around the Moon. A landing could follow in 2025. NASA is targeting the moon’s unexplored south pole, where permanently shadowed craters are believed to hold ice that could be used by future crews.
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