CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA has postponed the arrival of astronauts trip to the moon due to expected temperatures around freezing at the launch site.
The first Artemis moonshot with a crew is now scheduled for no earlier than February 8, two days later than planned.NASA was all set to conduct a fuel test with the 98-meter-long moon rocket on Saturday, but decided to cancel everything late Thursday due to the expected cold.
The critical dress rehearsal is now scheduled for Monday, weather permitting. The change gives NASA just three days in February to send four astronauts around the moon and back before March rolls around.
“Any additional delay would result in a day-to-day change,” NASA said in a statement Friday.
Heating elements keep the Orion capsule atop the rocket warm, officials said, and rocket cleaning systems are also being adapted to the cold.
Commander Reid Wiseman and his crew remain in quarantine in Houston and their arrival at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is uncertain.
NASA has just a handful of days each month to launch its first lunar crew in more than half a century. Apollo 17 concluded that legendary lunar exploration program in 1972.
Complicating matters is the need to send a new crew to the International Space Station as quickly as possible, a mission accelerated by the last crew returning early for medical reasons.
The moonshot will be prioritized if it can leave before Feb. 11, the last possible launch date of the month, mission managers said Friday.
If that happens, the next station’s crew will have to wait until the Artemis astronauts return to Earth before launching later this month.
“It couldn’t be cooler that they’re in quarantine and we’re in quarantine, and we’re trying to launch two rockets at about the same time,” NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway, part of the next station crew, said Friday. “It’s a pretty exciting time to be part of NASA.”
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