An ‘engine bleed’ that could not be fixed in time prompted the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) to the cancel the launch of its most powerful rocket yet, the Artemis I, the vehicle that is ultimately intended to take humans back to the Moon for the first time in 50 years.
This first test flight in the Artemis programme was hampered by technical glitches, according to the BBC.
First, a crack was found, then engineers battled to stabilise the temperature of one of the big engines under the rocket. The launch was finally called off when Nasa announced that an ‘engine bleed’ could not be fixed in time.
Nasa can try again on Friday, or on 5 September.
Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people who had travelled to Florida with the hope of seeing the launch of Nasa’s new rocket were heading home, disappointed.
Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said: ‘You don’t want to launch a candle until it’s ready to go.’ He said on Nasa’s live feed: ‘We don’t launch until it’s right.’
The rocket was a ‘very complicated machine’, he said, adding that Nasa was testing the aircraft in ‘a way you would never do with the human crew on board’.
‘This is just part of the space business and particularly a test flight,’ Nelson said.
Nasa said launch controllers were continuing to evaluate why a bleed test was not successful and ran out of time.
The test was being conducted to get the RS-25 engines on the bottom of the core stage to the proper temperature range for lift-off.
[Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/51945269425]