Artemis Moon Rocket Friday Launch Still Possible if Engine 3 Bleed Issue Resolved, NASA Says

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The unmanned Artemis Moon Rocket may still be test fired on Friday if flight engineers can resolve its number 3 engine bleed issues in time at the launch pad, senior NASA executives told a press conference on Monday.

"Friday is definitely in play. The team is setting up for a 96 hour recycle," Artemis Mission Manager Mike Serafin said. "This really points to an engine bleed issue on the core stage side. We never got to the engine bleed itself during the wet dress rehearsal. If we can resolve this operationally out on the pad Friday is still in play."

Serafin said the full issue that forced the canceling of Monday’s planned launch, which US Vice President Kamala Harris had flown down from Washington to attend, had still to be resolved.

"We are still trying to understand what happened. The inter-tank vent was not cooperating with us," he said.

Launch controllers are continuing to evaluate why a bleed test to get the RS-25 engines on the bottom of the core stage to the proper temperature range for liftoff was not successful and ran out of time in the two-hour launch window, NASA said.