NASA postpones the launch of the Artemis I rocket due to a fuel leak

The Artemis I spacecraft has suffered a new setback that has forced its launch scheduled for this Saturday to be postponed for the second time.

In this case, it has been a leak in the devices to refuel the rocket, as announced by NASA.

The launch had already been suspended last Monday due to a fault detected in an engine.

Mark Burger, responsible for the time of the Space Force, had announced that there was a 60% chance of canceling the flight due to atmospheric conditions, but finally it was a new fault that caused the cancellation.

Along with the symbolic aspects, such as the arrival of the first woman or the first non-white person on the lunar surface, the Artemis program, led by the US space agency and supported by international partners such as the European or Japanese agencies, aims to establishment of an orbital station and a permanent lunar base to explore the exploitation of satellite resources and prepare for the future sending of humans to Mars in the 2030s.

Named after Apollo's twin Greek goddess, the Artemis I mission has produced reminiscences of a time when space exploration fired the imaginations of hundreds of millions of people around the globe.

Bigger than the hulking Saturn Vs that launched the Apollo missions, the SLS launcher and Orion spacecraft stand 98 meters tall, five meters taller than the Statue of Liberty and not seen since the 1960s.

Launch delays have been a tradition since space travel began.

Sometimes for technical reasons, like this time.

Some ships, like the now decommissioned space shuttle, used three computers to monitor the status of onboard systems.

If a failure was detected, the three machines made a joint estimate to decide whether or not to cancel the launch, unless it was a truly catastrophic failure.

The second most common cause of cancellation is weather conditions.

It doesn't just have to be good weather on land.

The proximity of electrical storms (Apollo 12 was struck by lightning during takeoff) and strong winds aloft are also unacceptable, not because they threaten to deflect the trajectory, but because they can induce dangerous stresses in the rocket body.

Today, the weather conditions also cast doubt on the possibility of the launch.

The next attempt to restart the conquest of the Moon will take place on Monday at 5:20 p.m. Florida time, 11:30 p.m. Spanish time.

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