NASA hauls its repaired moon rocket from the hangar back to the pad for an early April launch

The NASA Artemis II rocket with the Orion spacecraft moved toward the pad Friday following repairs Vehicle Assembly Building. (AP video: Cody Jackson; Production: Shelby Lum)

For the second time this year, NASA moved its moon rocket from the hangar out toward the pad Friday in hopes of launching four astronauts on a lunar fly-around next month.

If the latest repairs work and everything else goes NASA’s way, the Space Launch System could blast off as early as April 1 from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The Artemis II crew went into quarantine this week in Houston.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket began the slow 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) trek in the middle of the night, transported atop a massive crawler used since the 1960s Apollo era. The trip was held up for several hours by high wind but completed by midday, 11 hours after it began.

The three Americans and one Canadian will zip around the moon in their capsule and then come straight home without stopping. Their mission should have been completed by now, but hydrogen fuel leaks and clogged helium lines forced two months of delay.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/nasa-moon-rocket-artemis-e5b018866abb059cb1fce3af44c4452c

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