NASA postpones moon rocket launch

About 800 people, including children in astronaut suits, watched a live stream Monday of the Artemis I launch pad at the Johnson Space Center in Houston until NASA called off the mission. A hydrogen leak, communication problems, and the weather pushed the first flight in NASA’s Artemis project to Friday at the earliest. This six-week mission would have sent dummies into orbit around the moon in a flight that would have ended with the rocket diving into the Pacific Ocean in October. 

What are the next steps for the project? The Artemis project aims to put astronauts back on the moon for the first time since the Apollo program 50 years ago. Assuming the test flight goes well, NASA hopes to put astronauts in the rocket as soon as 2024 to fly around the moon and then return. If there are no problems, two astronauts could land on the moon as soon as 2025. 

Dig deeper: Listen to Bonnie Pritchett’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about NASA’s preparation for the Artemis I mission.