NASA is pressing ahead with plans to start a three-day dress rehearsal countdown for the agency's new SLS/Artemis-1 moon rocket on April 1, officials said Friday.
NASA is pressing ahead with plans to start a three-day dress rehearsal countdown for the agency's new SLS/Artemis-1 moon rocket on April 1, officials said Friday. The plan gives the test priority over the planned April 3 launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule for the first privately-funded civilian flight to the space station.
But if the SLS team runs into problems leading up to the"wet dress rehearsal" and is delayed, the SpaceX flight, chartered by Houston-based Axiom Space, will take off on April 3 as had been planned, carrying a retired NASA astronaut and three wealthy entrepreneurs to the space station for an eight-day stay.
NASA plans to launch the towering SLS rocket on its maiden flight, an unpiloted trip beyond the moon and back, in the early June timeframe. The team wants to get the countdown test done as soon as possible so they can move the rocket back into the protection of its processing hangar — and out of any threatening weather — for final pre-flight processing and to resolve any issues that might come up in the test.
Delays are an issue in part because of temperature constraints based on the space station's orbit with respect to the sun. Lueders said mission managers are in daily contact and the schedule should come into sharper focus over the next week or so.
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