Late on Tuesday evening, SpaceX, announced the postponement of the planned launch of a robotic moon lander, marking a day’s delay in what in the highly anticipated mission. The launch, initially scheduled for early Wednesday, was scrubbed less than two hours before its set liftoff time due to technical concerns, with the launch now rescheduled for at least a day later.
SpaceX disclosed the reason for the delay on the social media platform X, citing “irregular methane temperatures before loading” as the primary concern. This issue, occurring during the preparatory phase before the methane fuel was to be loaded, raised questions about the potential impact on the Falcon 9 rocket’s performance. It’s noteworthy that the Falcon 9’s Merlin engines are powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen, not methane, suggesting that the detected anomaly pertained to a separate aspect of the mission’s hardware.
The decision to postpone the flight was made approximately 75 minutes before the scheduled launch time of 12:57 a.m. EST at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. SpaceX has since announced that it will target the next available launch window at 1:05 a.m. EST on Thursday, February 15, 2024.
The mission aims to deploy the Nova-C lander, named Odysseus, to the lunar surface. This is the first landing attempt for Houston-based Intuitive Machines, who designed and built the lander. The mission is not only poised to be the first U.S. lunar touchdown since the Apollo missions ended half a century ago but also the inaugural lunar landing by a privately-owned vehicle. Additionally, it represents a critical milestone under NASA’s Artemis moon program, which seeks to re-establish American presence on the Moon ahead of China’s plans to land its own crewed spacecraft there.
