WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) – NASA said on Tuesday it plans to make a second launch attempt of its giant next-generation rocket from the Artemis program on Saturday, five days after postponing the rocket’s liftoff as a precaution. due to possible technical problems.
The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is to propel an uncrewed capsule named Orion around the Moon for a six-week test flight to prepare the two devices to reach cruising speed for a crewed mission scheduled for 2024.
Five decades after the end of the Apollo mission era, the SLS rocket is described as the most powerful and complex in the world. It is the most massive vertical launch system ever built by NASA since the Saturn V rocket for Apollo.
If the first two Artemis missions are successful, NASA plans to send astronauts to the Moon in 2025, including a woman for the first time. Many experts, however, believe that this timeline should be longer.
We have to go back to 1972 to find traces of the last human steps on the Moon, as part of the Apollo 17 mission.
The Artemis program aims to make it possible to establish a long-term base on the Moon in order to make trips to Mars – a hypothesis that NASA is considering for the post-2030 horizon. (Report Joey Roulette; French version Jean Terzian)
click here for restrictions
©2022 Reuters