Array
NASA kicked off Monday its plan to send an unmanned space capsule into the moon’s orbit, marking the initial launch in an ambitious plan to establish a long term presence on the moon for scientific discovery and economic development.
The space capsule, called Artemis I, will travel for roughly 40 days — reaching as close as 60 miles from the moon, and then 40,000 miles above the moon when orbiting over its dark side — before landing in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.
After the launch was scrubbed, the next attempt will occur Sept. 3.
Launch control gave an order for fuel loading operations for Artemis I to begin Saturday morning, ahead of the scheduled launch window.
Over the next few hours 760,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen will be loaded into the Space Launch System (SLS) tank.
Engineers detected a liquid hydrogen leak in a quick disconnect cavity and stopped flowing the propellant to the core stage while they troubleshot, NASA had said earlier.
Launch controllers have resumed the flow of liquid hydrogen to the core stage.
-ABC News’ Gina Sunseri
NASA officials announced Friday that Artemis I is still on track to launch Saturday afternoon between 2:17 p.m. ET and 4:17 p.m. ET.
Jeremy Parsons, deputy manager of exploration ground systems at the Kennedy Space Center, said pre-launch tests and checks are «proceeding right on schedule.
