Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne says today was “still a good day for Canada” even though the test launch of NASA’s new moon rocket was postponed this morning.
Champagne, who is in Florida for a two-day trip that includes meetings with Canadian astronauts and NASA officials, got up at 1:30 a.m. to head to the launch pad in Cape Canaveral only to see the mission delayed.
He told Canadian reporters that after more than half a century since humans last visited the moon, days or weeks of waiting for this Artemis test launch to proceed won’t matter in the long term.
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A Canadian astronaut is expected to be on the first manned crew of the rocket, and Canada is contributing a new robotic arm to a space station NASA plans to put in orbit around the moon.
NASA postpones Artemis launch due to technical problems
The debut flight was scheduled to go ahead today with three test dummies aboard, but a last-minute cascade of problems culminated in unexplained engine trouble.
The next launch attempt will not take place until Friday at the earliest and could be delayed until mid-September or later.
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