On Monday, NASA had to reschedule the Artemis 1 rocket launch after discovering a fuel leak in the engine before the initial launch. The aim of this program is not only to send it beyond the moon, which will be the farthest a rocket with humans aboard will have flown, but also to return humans to the moon for the first time in 50 years.
The launch tentatively scheduled for Friday will have no crew and will be crewed by mannequins to collect data for future missions.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who traveled to Florida for the initial launch, said: “Innovation requires this kind of moment. Where you test out something that’s never been done, and then you regroup, and you figure out what the next step will be to get to the ultimate goal, which, for us, is going to the moon and showing how humans can live and work on the moon and, again, with the next step being to go to Mars.”
Should the launch not happen on Friday, the next blast-off could be on Monday, Labor Day.
NASA says that if all goes well, it will send humans to the moon in 2025. Plans include sending the first person of color to the moon’s surface during the mission, which is named for the mythological goddess of the moon.
