Here Is Why The Launch Of NASA’s Artemis 1 Moon Mission Was Postponed Today

NASA on Monday postponed its giant Moon rocket ‘Artemis 1’ launch after issues emerged during the countdown, delaying the debut of its towering rocket and its long-awaited mission to the moon.

NASA today called off the test flight because of a leak in one of the four RS-25 engines. The six-week uncrewed mission aims to go around the moon and back 50 years after Apollo’s last lunar mission.

According to NDTV, a problem was detected on one of the rocket’s main engines, RS-25, 40 minutes before the scheduled liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

NASA said that they first noticed the ‘engine bleed’ when the launch team began filling the rocket’s core fuel tanks with super-cooled liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellants.

The four engines are used during the rocket’s core stage and needed to be “conditioned” with cryogenic propellant to bring them up to the correct temperature for launch.

One of these engines did not achieve the high-accuracy temperature as NASA expected it to. The rocket is currently in a stable configuration and will now attempt to take off on September 2.

The agency was slated to launch its Artemis I mission from the Kennedy Space Center during a two-hour launch window that opened at 8:33 a.m. ET, sending the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule on a journey around the moon.

NASA’s team is expected to meet on Tuesday afternoon to identify the next steps for Artemis I. If a launch attempt in the next week isn’t possible, the SLS rocket may need to be rolled off the launchpad for what would likely be a lengthy delay.