World

NASA called off a test flight on Monday of its largest-ever rocket in a setback to the ambitious program to send humans back to the Moon and eventually to Mars.

“We don’t launch until it’s right,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said after an engine temperature issue forced liftoff from Kennedy Space Center to be scrubbed.

“This is a very complicated machine,” Nelson said. “You don’t want to light the candle until it’s ready to go.”

Alternative dates for launch of the US space agency’s uncrewed Artemis 1 mission are Friday and next Monday.

Blastoff had been planned for 8:33 am (1233 GMT) but was cancelled because of a temperature problem with one of the four RS-25 engines on the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

NASA said a test to get one of the engines to the proper temperature range for liftoff was not successful.

It said the SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule which sits on top “remain in a safe and stable configuration.”

Nelson said delays were “just part of the space business” and expressed confidence that NASA engineers will “get it fixed and then we’ll fly.”

Tens of thousands of people — including US Vice President Kamala Harris — had gathered near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to watch the launch, which comes 50 years after Apollo 17 astronauts last set foot on the Moon.

The goal of the flight is to test the SLS and Orion crew capsule. Mannequins equipped with sensors are standing in for a crew for the mission.

Overnight operations to fill the orange-and-white rocket with more than three million liters of ultra-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen were briefly delayed by a high risk of lightning.

Around 3:00 am, another hiccup emerged: a potential leak was detected during the filling of the main stage with hydrogen, causing a pause. After tests, the flow resumed.

NASA engineers later detected the engine temperature problem and put a hold on the countdown before eventually scrubbing the launch.

The rocket’s Orion capsule is to orbit the Moon to see if the vessel is safe for people in the near future. At some point, Artemis aims to put a woman and a person of color on the Moon for the first time.

– Extreme temperatures –

During the 42-day trip, the Orion capsule will orbit the Moon, coming within 60 miles (100 kilometers) at its closest approach, and then fire its engines to shoot out 40,000 miles — a record for a spacecraft rated to carry humans.

One of the mission’s primary objectives is to test the capsule’s heat shield, which at 16 feet in diameter is the largest ever built.

On its return to Earth’s atmosphere, the heat shield will have to withstand speeds of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) — roughly half as hot as the Sun.

The dummies aboard the spacecraft will record acceleration, vibration and radiation levels.

The craft will also deploy small satellites to study the lunar surface.

A complete failure would be devastating for a program costing $4.1 billion per launch that is already years behind schedule.

– Life on the Moon –

The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts into orbit around the Moon without landing on its surface. The crew of Artemis 3 is to land on the Moon in 2025 at the earliest.

And since humans have already visited the Moon, Artemis has its sights set on another lofty goal: a crewed mission to Mars.

The Artemis program is to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface.

Gateway would serve as a staging and refueling station for a voyage to Mars that would take a minimum of several months.

Palaeontologists in Portugal have unearthed the fossilised skeleton of what could be the largest dinosaur ever found in Europe.

The remains are thought to be those of a sauropod, a herbivorous dinosaur 12 metres (39 feet) tall and 25 metres long that roamed the Earth around 150 million years ago.

“It’s one of the biggest specimens discovered in Europe, perhaps in the world,” palaeontologist Elisabete Malafaia, from the Faculty of Sciences at Lisbon University, told AFP on Monday.

The bones were uncovered by Portuguese and Spanish scientists in the garden of a house near Pombal in central Portugal at the beginning of August.

Among the bones collected, they found the remains of a rib about three metres long, Malafaia said.

Fossil fragments were first noticed at the site in 2017, when the owner was digging up his garden to make way for an extension.

He contacted palaeontologists, who unearthed part of the dinosaur skeleton earlier this month and have been examining it ever since.

Sauropods have characteristically long necks and tails and are among the largest animals to have ever lived.

The fossils discovered at the Monte Agudo site in Pombal are thought to be those of a brachiosaurid who lived during the Upper Jurassic period.

The fact that the vertebrae and ribs were found at the same location and in the position they would have been in the dinosaur’s anatomy is “relatively rare”, Malafaia said.

The team may conduct more digs in the coming months at the site and in the surrounding area.

An engine problem threatened to delay the launch on Monday of NASA’s most powerful rocket yet on an uncrewed test flight to take humans back to the Moon and eventually to Mars.

Blastoff, which had been planned for 8:33 am (1233 GMT), was put on hold because of a temperature issue with one of the four engines on the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the US space agency said.

Tens of thousands of people — including US Vice President Kamala Harris — have gathered along the beach near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to watch the launch, which comes 50 years after Apollo 17 astronauts last set foot on the Moon.

The goal of the flight, dubbed Artemis 1, is to test the SLS and the Orion crew capsule that sits atop the rocket. Mannequins equipped with sensors are standing in for a crew for the mission.

Overnight operations to fill the rocket with more than three million liters of ultra-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen were briefly delayed by a high risk of lightning, though it was a “go” after an hour. 

Around 3:00 am, another hiccup emerged: a potential leak was detected during the filling of the main stage with hydrogen, causing a pause. 

After tests, the flow resumed.

“The leak is at an acceptable level and we have returned to fast fill operations,” NASA tweeted. 

But NASA engineers later detected a problem with the temperature in one of the four engines and put a hold on the countdown. NASA has a two-hour window Monday in which to carry out the launch.

The massive orange-and-white rocket, which has been sitting on the space center’s Launch Complex 39B for more than a week, is not able to take off in case of rains and storms. 

If Monday’s launch is scrubbed, September 2 and 5 have been penciled in as alternative flight dates.

The rocket’s Orion capsule is set to orbit the Moon to see if the vessel is safe for people in the near future. At some point, Artemis aims to put a woman and a person of color on the Moon for the first time.

“This mission goes with a lot of hopes and dreams of a lot of people. And we now are the Artemis generation,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.

In another first, a woman — Charlie Blackwell-Thompson — will give the final green light for liftoff. 

Women now account for 30 percent of the control room staff, compared to one for the Apollo 11 mission — the first time astronauts landed on the moon in 1969.

– Extreme temperatures –

During the 42-day trip, the Orion capsule will orbit the Moon, coming within 60 miles (100 kilometers) at its closest approach, and then fire its engines to shoot out 40,000 miles — a record for a spacecraft rated to carry humans.

One of the mission’s primary objectives is to test the capsule’s heat shield, which at 16 feet in diameter is the largest ever built.

On its return to Earth’s atmosphere, the heat shield will have to withstand a speed of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) — or half as hot as the Sun.

The dummies aboard the spacecraft will record acceleration, vibration and radiation levels.

The craft will deploy small satellites to study the lunar surface.

A complete failure would be devastating for a program costing $4.1 billion per launch that is already years behind schedule.

– Life on the Moon –

Monday’s launch is “not a near-term sprint, but a long-term marathon to bring the solar system and beyond into our sphere,” said Bhavya Lal, NASA associate administrator for technology, policy and strategy.

The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts into orbit around the Moon without landing on its surface. The crew of Artemis 3 is to land on the Moon in 2025 at the earliest.

And since humans have already visited the Moon, Artemis has its sights set on another lofty goal: a crewed mission to Mars.

The Artemis program is to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface.

Gateway would serve as a staging and refueling station for a voyage to Mars that would take a minimum of several months.

With Europe facing a major energy crisis, Spain wants to become the new gateway for gas through an ambitious trans-Pyrenees pipeline and is hoping supply-starved Germany will pressure a reluctant France.

Madrid has long been hoping for the revival of plans to build a pipeline connecting the Iberian Peninsula via France to central Europe, which was abandoned in 2019 over regulatory and funding issues. 

But Russia’s war on Ukraine and its reduction of gas deliveries to Europe has revived interest in the project, notably from Germany, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz saying such a pipeline could make “a massive contribution” to easing the supply crisis.

He has invited Spain’s Pedro Sanchez for talks on Tuesday with energy likely to be a key issue.

Beyond the gas crisis, Spain is hoping that improving its connectivity with the rest of Europe will open the way for it to become the European Union’s new hub for green hydrogen — a key energy source of the future.

And for that, a pipeline across the Pyrenees would be crucial. 

– France obstacles –

In 2013, work began on the so-called MidCat project, a pipeline linking Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia to the south of France through the Pyrenees, aimed at connecting Spain and Portugal to central Europe’s gas network.

Six years later it was dropped by regulators in France and Spain over its environmental impact and lack of economic viability.

And despite the current energy crisis, France has been decidedly unenthusiastic about reviving the project.

But that has done little to cool the ardour of the Spanish premier, who is determined it will go ahead — even if it means resorting to “plan B”: building an underwater connection to Italy, he said in Bogota last week.

Ecology Minister Teresa Ribera told Antena 3 television last week the Italian alternative was being studied, but admitted it would be best to go for “the easiest option… across the Pyrenees”, saying such a pipeline “could be operational by late 2023 or early 2024”.

“It’s not a bilateral issue between Spain and France,” added Ribera in an interview published Monday in Spanish daily El Mundo. 

“It’s about the European project. I wonder where is France’s European ideal.”

Germany is already onboard. 

“I have been very active in talks with… the French president and the president of the European Commission in advocating that we take on such a project,” Scholz said on August 11.

It could make “a massive contribution” to easing the supply crisis, he added.

Spain has six liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals for converting deliveries made by sea into gas, making it the country with the biggest regasification capacity in the EU. 

Portugal also has a plant, meaning the Iberian peninsula has the capacity to become a hub for gas shipped in from the United States while the transition to renewable energies is being completed. 

– Hydrogen hub –

Spain and Portugal want the EU to foot the bill for building such a connection, estimated at some 440 million euros ($440 million). 

Such a pipeline could never be ready in time to ease the anticipated shortages this winter, but could be a key conduit for exporting green hydrogen, an area in which Spain is already taking a lead. 

Green hydrogen is produced by passing an electric current through water to split it between hydrogen and oxygen, a process called electrolysis. It is considered green because the electricity comes from renewable energy sources that don’t create harmful emissions.

When fossil fuels burn, they emit harmful greenhouse gases, but hydrogen only emits harmless water vapour.

“Spain is going to become the world’s leading hub for the transport of green hydrogen which is the future of the European economy,” Josep Sanchez Llibre, head of Catalonia’s Foment del Treball business confederation, told Spain’s public television this month.

Visiting Paris last week, Felix Bolanos, a cabinet minister and close ally of the Spanish premier, said MidCat was “a long-term project”.

“The idea is that over the medium- to long-term, it will be able to transport green hydrogen as well as blue hydrogen,” he said.

Blue hydrogen is produced by using methane in natural gas. 

“Spain must take the lead in making us the great European and global gas and hydrogen interconnection,” said Sanchez Llibre.