the rollout of the sls rocket and the orion spacecraft for nasa's artemis one mission
the first flight of its artemis program that will ultimately return humans to the moon has
been pushed back nasa announced wednesday february 2nd that the agency's sls mega rocket and orion
capsule won't roll out to launch pad 39b at nasa's kennedy space center until sometime in march
ultimately we're going to launch this flight hardware and the flight hardware is ready
and when the team's ready mike bolger the program manager of exploration ground systems
at nasa's kennedy space center reported during a news conference held today
while the teams are not working any major issues nasa has added additional time to
complete closeout activities inside the vab vehicle assembly building prior to
rolling the rocket out for the first time agency officials wrote about the delay in a statement
while the team has not yet announced a new date for rollout right now we're kind of looking
at mid-march tom whitmire the deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development
at nasa headquarters in washington dc said during the conference we'll get a little bit
closer to the final closeout and then we'll be in a better position to target a specific date
once the rollout to the pad is successfully completed the next step toward launch will
be a wet dress rehearsal this procedure will see the mission team simulate every step of the launch
except for the launch itself even including fueling the rocket during the news conference
bulger and other experts at nasa working on the mission said that there was no one singular reason
that caused this delay but rather the combined difficulties of bringing a complicated mission
like this to launch successfully logistically it's a very difficult thing whitmire said
we're taking it one step at a time bulger said we're doing it very meticulously and
we're proud of the progress that we've made bulger added that over the past several
months the team has conducted significant testing with the flight hardware for both sls
and orion they have assembled and stacked the flight elements at kennedy's vehicle assembly
building powered the pair up tested flight software and emissions communication systems
and we're currently installing and testing the flight termination systems of the launch
vehicle bulger said bolger added that in addition to the team wanting to be meticulous
the mission has faced some small issues including the ongoing coronavirus pandemic
as well as the recent unusually cold temperatures in florida this past weekend we were somewhat
impacted by the cold temperatures bulger said the vehicle assembly building is a really big building
and it's not heated and some of the goose and glues as we say are affected by the temperatures
but he added for the most part in the vehicle assembly building we really aren't impacted by
what's going on in the environment around us and we're able to kind of work our way through it
as the new date for rollout is not yet known it is also unclear how the launch date for the
artemis one mission which was previously also set for march might be impacted while he was not able
to give concrete dates when artemis one might now launch mike serafin artemis one mission manager at
nasa headquarters said during the news conference that if the launch is pushed to april or may a
launch window would extend from april 8th to april 23rd another would open may 7th and close may 21st
now coming onto starship's orbital launch as you all know the delay of the faa's environmental
assessment had caused spacex to postpone their plans of shooting ship 20 to orbit
even though the fcc approved faa hasn't as they have been evaluating all the comments
they got during the call out of the environmental hazard suggestion periods
actually they told the whole public to comment on this topic
and now they aren't able to go through all the comments they receive from spacex fans
this is kind of funny right anyway they said they will complete the assessment within february last
so if approved starship will surely have its maiden flight to orbit before nasa shoots sls
today spacex's falcon 9 rocket will launch 49 starlink satellites to orbit and is set
to lift off at 1 13 pm eastern standard time so don't miss it get ready with your popcorns
spacex has canceled today's road closure which was scheduled from 10 a.m to 10 p.m
anyway tomorrow we have another closure from 6 a.m to 4 p.m and on february 7th from 10 a.m to 10 p.m
looks like something exciting is coming because these closures are not the usual temporary ones
and that wraps up today's episode we did also like to take the time to thank you for your
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