Return to the Moon: Artemis 1's second launch also canceled

NASA has also decided to cancel the second launch attempt of the Artemis 1 mission directed to the Moon .

The cause of the stop was a leak detected during the loading of liquid hydrogen and which, after three attempts, it was not possible to eliminate.

From the US space agency, however, no alarms, despite the second "No go".

"This is a test, just like those made in the days of the Apollo program," explains the president

of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), Giorgio Saccoccia .

"What is adopted is a sequential approach, in which each step serves to learn what the problems are, to identify the difficulties and to overcome them," added Saccoccia. "Even in the Apollo program, every launch before the moon landing was a test of trying to do things that were not done before ."

Indeed, the loss of liquid hydrogen that today led to the postponement of launch to the Moon is a prime example of how challenging each step of the return to the Moon is: "Just think that liquid hydrogen is only 20 cooler degrees to absolute zero: it is easy - observes the ASI president - to imagine the complexity of having to fill such a large tank, like that of the SLS rocket, with propellant capable of creating thermal shock. It is a very complicated procedure ".

(Unioneonline / lf)