Artemis launch – live: Nasa won’t commit to new launch date lift-off was scrubbed

Speaking at a press conference, Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson says taht scrubs are just part of space flight.

“On the spaceflight hat I participated in …. 36 and a half years ago, we scrubbed four times on the pad,” Mr Nelson said. “This is a brand new rocket, it’s not going to fly until it’s ready.”

Nasa is still working on the options for following up Monday’s scrubbed launch, according to Artemis Mission Manager Mike Sarafin

“It’s too early to say what the options are,” he said at a Monday afternoon press conference, but added “we will come back and talk about where we stand tomorrow evening.”

According to Nasa officials speaking at a Monday afternoon press conference, the Artemis I launch faced weather challenges that would have kept the rocket from launching on time even had engine troubles not led the space agency to scrub the launch.

“We would have been no go at the beginning of the window our to precipitation, and later in the window we would have been no go due to lightning,” Nasa’s Artemis Mission Manager Mike Sarafin said Monday.

Nasa’s Artemi Mission Manager Mike Sarafin said Monday afternoon it was not an engine problem that led to the scrubbing of the Aetemis I launch on Monday morning, but rather a problem with the engine bleed system in the rocket core stage. The bleed system trickles cyrogenic fuel into the engines to chill them down so the engines are not “shocked” when fuel flows into them at full pressure at launch.

At the same time, Mr Sarafin said that while he could not say for sure that Artemis I could be ready for launch by the next launch window on Friday, “Friday is definitely in play.”

At a Monday afternoon press conference, Nasa officials went into more detail about the problems that led the space agency to scrub the launch of Artemis I, which had been scheduled for the morning.

In addition to an issue with the engine bleed system, which uses a small amount of liquid hydrogen to chill the SLS Moon rocket’s engines down enough to handle a full flow of cryogenic fuel, a vent valve in the rocket’s liquid hydrogen tank was not working properly.

“The challenge that that created was we want to increase the pressure in the tank in order to establish the hydrogen bleed and the vent valve wasn't cooperating with us,” Artemis Mission Manager Mike Sarafin told reporters. “The vent valve complicated that and that's that's at the point where the team decided that it was appropriate to to declare the scrub, because we just weren't going to make the two hours window.”

Everyone at Nasa would have liked to see Artemis I launch on Monday morning, Nasa associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate Jim Free told reporters at Mondays’ press conference, but noted that deciding to scrub a mission, “that's the most important decision we can make.”

“Seeing smoke and fire is something that everybody enjoys,” Artemis Mission Manager Mike Sarafin added, but “this is an incredibly hard business. We're trying to do something that hasn't been done in over 50 years, and we're dealing with new technology.”

The approach then, is that Artemis I will fly when its ready to fly, and that could be later, or it could be as soon as the launch window opening Friday afternoon.

“There's nonzero chance, we'll have a launch opportunity on Friday,” Mr Sarafin said. “We're gonna we're gonna play all nine innings here, you know. And we're not ready to give up yet.”

Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson told reporters at Mondays’ press conference following the scrubbed launch of Artemis I that US Vice President Kamala Harris had been on hand, hoping to witness the big rocket launch.

“She was pumped the entire time. She is very bullish on our space program. And on this particular program of going back to the moon and going to Mars,” Mr Nelson said. “I would expect that you will see her at a future launch.”

Nasa will hold its next press conference on the Artemis I mission at 6pm EDT Tuesday evening, and will stream the session live on its website.

The press conference will feature Nasa’s Artemis Mission Manager, Mike Sarafin, who spoke with reporters Monday afternoon in the wake of the scrubbing of the Artemis I launch schedule for early Monday morning, as well as Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, and SLS Program Manager John Honeycutt.

Ms Blackwell Thomspon and Mr Honeycutt have not yet spoken with the public since the scrubbed launch and may provide more technical details about what went wrong with Monday’s launch, and how, and when, Nasa will fix them. At Monday’s press conference, Mr Sarafin referenced Mr Honeycutt multiple times in relation to questions about challenge Nasa encountered in chilling the SLS’s four RS-25 engines down, noting that the latter’s team was already studying the problem and the data from the aborted launch.