After repair: New NASA rocket launches at night

NASA will stream the launch of the new rocket on its website. Specifically, it is planned that the space capsule “Orion” will be launched from the cosmodrome of Cape Canaveral to the moon using the heavy rocket “Space Launch System”. It is to circle this from a distance of almost 100 kilometers and land again in the Pacific about 40 days later. It takes about 90 minutes for the capsule to leave its orbit.

The weather should not detract from the project. There is a 70 percent chance of “favorable meteorological conditions (…),” the US Armed Forces Space Department said. As reported, the countdown was only stopped about 40 minutes before the scheduled start last Monday.

Fixed main engine and missile
NASA pointed to problems with one of the main engines. Technicians have now repaired the leaking fuel line, said the space center’s deputy program manager, Jeremy Parons. Two issues with the rocket itself – a faulty engine temperature sensor and some cracks in the insulating foam – have also been fixed. The missile system had already been tested in the spaceport and problems had arisen here too.

People will follow in 2025
The new crew spacecraft will be launched unmanned 50 years after the last Apollo mission. American astronauts and a female astronaut will land on the moon again in 2025. Whether that succeeds depends on whether the first project of the “Orion” now succeeds. In the future, four people could be put into orbit around the moon, where two of them would transfer to a landing vehicle. There will also be a kind of space station on the moon, which will serve as a base for an unmanned flight to Mars in the distant future.