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NASA clears Artemis moon rocket for an April launch with four astronauts after repairs Topic:Space

2h ago 2 hours ago The rock sits on the launch pad, attached to a huge metal scaffold apparatus. NASA's Artemis II SLS moon rocket with the Orion spacecraft in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (AP: John Raoux)

In short: A launch window of early April has been set for the Artemis II launch, with NASA saying astronauts could blast off as early as April 1.

The launch will mark humanity's first trip to the moon in more than 50 years and pave the way for future lunar exploration.

What's next: If NASA does not launch within the six day window, the mission will be delayed until late April or early May.

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Share NASA has cleared its moon rocket for an April launch with four astronauts after completing the latest round of repairs.

The 98-metre rocket will roll out of the hangar and back to the pad next week at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, leading to a launch attempt as early as April 1.

It will mark humanity's first trip to the moon in more than 50 years.

Artemis 2 is attached to a now lit launch apparatus, and stands next to the NASA hanger. The sky is a deep purple colour behind. Artemis II has been cleared for a launch attempt as early as April 1. (AP: John Raoux)

The Artemis II crew should have blasted off on a lunar fly around earlier this year, but fuel leaks and other problems with the Space Launch System rocket interfered.

Although NASA managed to plug the hydrogen fuel leaks at the pad in February, a helium-flow issue forced the space agency to return the rocket to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs, bumping the mission to April.

The space agency has only six days at the beginning of April to launch, otherwise it will have to stand down until a new window between April 30 and early May.

NASA 'playing Russian roulette' with astronauts' lives, ex-engineer says The orion spacecraft, with the moon, and Earth in the background. After years of delays, NASA's Artemis II mission is aiming to launch next month. But issues with the heat shield are causing some people to raise the alarm.

"It's a test flight and it is not without risk, but our team and our hardware are ready," Lori Glaze, NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate associate administrator, said .

Dr Glaze and other NASA officials declined to provide the risk probabilities for the upcoming mission.

John Honeycutt, chair of the mission management team, said history had shown that a new rocket had essentially a 50 per cent chance of success.

"There's so much gap since the only other SLS flight — more than three years ago without anyone on board — that it's difficult to understand any risk assessment numbers," Mr Honeycutt said. "It's not the first flight," Dr Glaze said.

"But we're also not in a regular cadence. So we definitely have significantly more risk than a flight system that's flying all the time."

Late last month, NASA's new administrator, Jared Isaacman, announced a major overhaul of the Artemis program to speed things up and, by doing so, reduce risk.

Dissatisfied with the slow pace and lengthy gaps between lunar missions, he added an extra practice flight in orbit around Earth for next year.

That is now the new Artemis III, with the moon landing by two astronauts shifted to Artemis IV.

Mr Isaacman is targeting one and maybe even two lunar landings in 2028.

NASA's Office of Inspector General warned in an audit this week that the space agency needs to come up with a rescue plan for its lunar crews.

A sign saying artemis and a rocket behind. Fuel leaks and other problems with the Space Launch System rocket have interfered with the luanch date. (AP: John Raoux)

Landing near the moon's south pole will be riskier than it was for the Apollo astronauts closer to the equator given, the rough polar terrain, according to the report.

The report cited the lunar landers as the top contributor for potential loss of crew during the first few Artemis moon landings. It listed the space agency's loss-of-crew threshold at one-in-40 for lunar operations and one-in-30 for Artemis missions overall.

Contracted by NASA to provide the moon landers for astronauts, Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin have accelerated work in order to meet the new 2028 target date.

The inside story of the Challenger disaster A forked white cloud against a dark blue sky, with a fiery orange ball at the join of the fork. Forty years ago, the Challenger space shuttle disintegrated just after lift-off. A small team of engineers tried to prevent the tragedy.

The inspector general's office said many technical challenges remained, including refuelling their landers in orbit around Earth before flying to the moon.

NASA sent 24 astronauts to the moon during Apollo, 12 of whom landed on it. All but one of the moonshots — Apollo 13 — achieved their prime objectives.

The program ended with Apollo 17 in 1972.

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