NASA scrubs moon rocket launch after engine issue

(29 Aug 2022)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4394600
NASA - MUST CREDIT NASA
Cape Canaveral, Florida - 29 August 2022
1. Wide of rocket on the launch pad
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator:
"I am very proud of this launch team. They have solved several problems along the way and they got to one that needed time to be solved."
++WHITE FLASH++
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator:
"This is a brand new rocket. It's not going to fly until it's ready. There are millions of components of this rocket and its systems. And needless to say, the complexity is daunting when you bring it all into the focus of a countdown."
4. Artemis mission rocket on the launch pad
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Mike Sarafin, NASA, Artemis I Mission Manager:
"We did encounter an issue chilling down engine number three. We need the engine to be at the cryogenically cooled temperature such that when it starts, it's not shocked with all the cold, the cold fuel that flows through it. So we needed a little extra time to assess that." ++PARTIALLY COVERED++
++WHITE FLASH++
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Mike Sarafin, NASA, Artemis I Mission Manager:
"Friday is definitely in play. We just need a little bit of time to look at the data. But the team is setting up for a 90, 96-hour recycle. So they're still holding in the launch countdown configuration and we're preserving the option for Friday. They're replenishing the commodities out at the, out at launch complex 39 B. You'll see some of those activities tomorrow."
7. Wide of Artemis mission rocket on the launch pad
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
NASA called off the launch of its mighty new moon rocket on its debut flight with three test dummies aboard Monday after encountering a last-minute cascade of problems culminating in unexplained trouble involving an engine.
The next launch attempt will not take place until Friday at the earliest and could be delayed until mid-September or later.
"This is a brand new rocket. It's not going to fly until it's ready. There are millions of components of this rocket and its systems. And needless to say, the complexity is daunting when you bring it all into the focus of a countdown," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
The mission will be the first flight in NASA's Artemis project, a quest to put astronauts back on the moon for the first time since the Apollo program ended 50 years ago.
As precious minutes ticked away Monday morning, NASA repeatedly stopped and started the fueling of the Space Launch System rocket because of a leak of highly explosive hydrogen, eventually succeeding in reducing the seepage to acceptable levels. The leak happened in the same place that saw seepage during a dress rehearsal in the spring.
The fueling already was running nearly an hour late because of thunderstorms off Florida's Kennedy Space Center.
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[balakrishnanchandrashekars]

My good advice to NASA team is to hand over your rocket to spaceX they will launch it sucsfully with further scurbing