Dummy run to shoot for the Moon, but not just yet …

Fifty years after the last Apollo mission, Artemis was set to get under way on Monday but an engine problem intervened.

The service module component of the Orion spacecraft on Sunday. Picture: AFP

Fifty years after the last Apollo mission, NASA’s most powerful rocket yet had been set to blast off on a maiden voyage of a mission to take ­humans back to the Moon, and eventually to Mars.

The space program called Artemis had been due to commence with the blast-off of the uncrewed 98m Space Launch System rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 8.33am (10.33pm AEST) on Monday but in something of an anti-climax, the mission was scrubbed after engineers noticed a fuel leak and then grappled with an engine problem during final liftoff preparations.

NASA said “an engine bleed that couldn’t be remedied” was the main reason the launch was cancelled.

Engineers first became aware of the issue overnight as they loaded three million litres of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fuel into the tanks of the giant rocket.

All four R-25 engines from the rockets core stage needed to be “conditioned” with cryogenic propellant to bring them up to the correct temperature for launch, but one of the four failed to respond as NASA expected.

The next attempt has been ­tentatively scheduled for Friday, September 2.

Tens of thousands of people – including Vice-President Kamala Harris – had lined the beaches to watch the launch.

The goal of the flight, Artemis 1, is to test the SLS and the Orion crew capsule that sits atop the rocket. The capsule will orbit the Moon to see if the vessel is safe for people. At some point, Artemis will see a woman and a person of colour walk on the Moon for the first time.

“This mission goes with a lot of hopes and dreams of a lot of ­people. We now are the Artemis generation,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said at the weekend.

The orange-and-white rocket has been sitting on the space centre’s Launch Complex 39B for a week and NASA said there was an 80 per cent chance of acceptable weather for a lift-off on time at the beginning of a launch window lasting two hours.

For the first time a woman — Charlie Blackwell-Thompson — was to give the green light for lift-off. Women are 30 per cent of the staff in the control room; there was just one with Apollo 11.

Cameras will capture every moment of the 42-day trip and include a selfie of the spacecraft with the Moon and Earth in the background. The Orion will orbit the Moon, coming within 100km at its closest approach and then firing its engines to get to a distance of 64,000km, a record for a spacecraft rated to carry humans.

A primary objective of the mission is to test the capsule’s heat shield, which at 5m in diameter is the largest ever built. On its return to the Earth’s atmosphere, the heat shield must withstand a speed of 40,000kmh and a temperature of 2760C – half as hot as the Sun.

Dummies fitted with sensors will record acceleration, vibration and radiation levels.

A complete failure would be devastating for the program, which costs $6bn per launch and is running years behind schedule.

The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts into orbit around the Moon without landing on its surface. The crew of Artemis 3 is to land on the Moon in 2025 at the earliest. The Artemis program aims to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface. Gateway would serve as a staging and refuelling station for a voyage to Mars that would take a minimum of several months.

AFP