NASA chief Bill Nelson has been talking concerning the house company’s resolution to name off the maiden launch of its next-generation rocket on Monday after engineers noticed a difficulty with one in all its engines simply 40 minutes earlier than it was set to carry off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.

“We don’t launch until it’s right,” Nelson mentioned in an interview that he gave shortly after the uncrewed rocket flight was shelved on Monday morning.

Nelson, who flew to orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1986, mentioned: “There are certain guidelines, and I think it’s just illustrative that this is a very complicated machine, a very complicated system, and all those things have to work.”

He added: “You don’t want to light the candle until it’s ready to go.”

Few would argue with that, however exactly when the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will get to take its first flight isn’t presently clear. The subsequent launch window opens on Friday, September 3, however NASA engineers first must resolve the engine situation that compelled the workforce to name off Monday’s launch. A choice is prone to be introduced at a media teleconference being held by NASA at 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, August 30.

Nelson famous that his personal Space Shuttle flight 36 years in the past was scrubbed 4 occasions earlier than it lastly blasted skyward.

“The fifth try was a flawless mission,” the NASA boss mentioned. “We know that if we had launched on any one of those scrubs, it would not have been a good day.”

Nelson continued: “It’s just part of the space business and it’s part of particularly a test flight. We are stressing and testing this rocket and spacecraft in a way that you would never do with a human crew on board, that’s the purpose of a test flight.”

Acknowledging the stellar efforts of the mission’s launch workforce, Nelson mentioned: “I want them to know that they’re doing the perfect job that they always do. They’re taking the opportunity, while that vehicle is still fueled up, to work this problem, and they’re going to work it, they’ll get to the bottom of it, they’ll get it fixed and then we’ll fly.”

When probably the most highly effective rocket that NASA has ever constructed does get off the bottom, it can propel the Orion spacecraft towards the moon in a key check flight that may ultimately result in a crewed touchdown on the lunar floor, probably in only a few years from now. After that, NASA desires to construct a moon base for long-duration stays, and use what it learns from the lunar missions to ship the primary astronauts to Mars, probably within the 2030s.

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