Unusually cold weather in Florida has pushed back a wet dress rehearsal for NASA’s Artemis II moon mission.
This rehearsal, which was supposed to happen on Friday, January 30, is now set to occur by Monday, February 2, at the latest.
“Engineers are actively observing the situation as cold fronts and strong winds have swept across Florida in recent days,” NASA indicated in a statement.
“Management assessed the capabilities of the hardware against expected weather conditions and decided to adjust the schedule due to this uncommon Arctic blast affecting the region.”
NASA mentioned it will finalize a launch date only after the wet dress rehearsal is completed, and plans to send a team of four astronauts into space.
In the meantime, NASA astronauts Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and departing Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen are currently quarantined in Houston, as stated by NASA.
The earliest potential launch date for Artemis II is Sunday, February 8.
This mission follows the successful unmanned Artemis I, which took to the skies in 2022.
Interestingly, the delay of Artemis II comes shortly after commemorations of the tragic Challenger disaster, which occurred on January 28, 1986. In that incident, seven crew members lost their lives just 73 seconds post-launch due to a failure in the O-ring of the right solid rocket booster, exacerbated by the cold conditions in Florida.
NASA will keep a close watch on weather developments leading up to the dress rehearsal.
