NASA officials are more confident that the Saturday launch attempt of its Artemis I mission to the moon will be successful after poring over data that led to Monday’s scrub, while weather may cooperate as well.
In fact, Monday’s scrub at Florida's Kennedy Space Center might have been unnecessary after NASA discovered the main reason for it was inaccurate sensor readings. Although there were several issues during the countdown that caused stress on the launch teams, the false reading was that one of the four RS-25 engines at the base of the Space Launch System rocket core stage had not cooled enough for a safe launch.
“We had some sensors that didn’t tell us what we thought,” said NASA SLS chief engineer John Blevins during a mission update Thursday. “We did the right thing by standing down with that uncertainty on Monday but we have confirmed that we did have good flow through those engines. We know we can chill those engines. We’re ready to proceed.”
