The maiden flight of the new US moon rocket was canceled on Monday shortly before the planned start in Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida - also because of a fuel leak. In addition, a sensor had indicated that one of the rocket's engines had overheated.

The next launch windows are September 19th through October 4th and October 17th through October 31st. According to NASA manager Bill Nelson, the Artemis launch may not take place until the second half of October, since the Cape Canaveral spaceport will be needed for a trip to the International Space Station (ISS) in early October.

Regarding the recent fuel leak, NASA said that numerous attempts to fix the problem were initially unsuccessful. Astronaut Victor Glover called the postponement of the launch "the right decision".

50 years after the last moon landing, NASA wants to use the Artemis 1 mission to prepare people to travel to the moon again. The SLS rocket is designed to launch an unmanned Orion capsule into space. The capsule will then orbit the moon at a distance of around 100 km. Then it should penetrate up to 64,000 kilometers behind the moon - that would be a record for a spaceship that is supposed to transport people.

The Artemis 1 mission is expected to last several weeks. Among other things, Germany is making a contribution to the NASA mission with the Orion service and propulsion module, which is mainly built in Germany. The Institute of Aerospace Medicine at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne made two human-like mannequins for the mission, which will be used to test flight conditions.

The follow-up mission Artemis 2 is to bring astronauts into a lunar orbit. With Artemis 3, the moon landing should be successful in 2025 at the earliest.

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