Month: April 2022

Official said on Monday that the launch of NASA’s new moon rocket has been pushed back by nearly a month after the Space Launch System failed to complete necessary prelaunch testing.

NASA’s SLS moon rocket had been estimated to blast off sometime between June 6 through 16, however, NASA said that launching during that window would now be challenging after issues during the SLS’s wet dress rehearsal prevented teams from finishing their system tests. Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for common exploration systems development at NASA, said: “I think that at this point, making the June launch window will be a bit of a challenge, with all the work we have to do. The next launch opportunity runs from June 29 to July 9.”

NASA said its teams will roll the SLS back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to troubleshoot hardware issues that thwarted planned prelaunch testing.  The behemoth will begin its roll back to the VAB next week, on April 26. NASA plans to return to the moon with the help of SLS, a heavy-lift rocket that’s been in development for more than a decade and so far has cost the agency $30 billion. The rocket is currently preparing for its maiden flight, called Artemis-1, which will see it fly around the moon.

Editorial credit: Tomas Marek / Shutterstock.com

A federal judge in Florida overturned the national mask mandate covering airlines and other public transportation ‘as exceeding the authority of U.S. health officials in their response to the coronavirus pandemic.’

The mask mandate was recently extended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and covered transportation including airplanes, trains, city subways and even ride-sharing vehicles, such as Uber. The decision by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa said the CDC improperly failed to justify its decision and did not follow proper rule making procedures that left it fatally flawed. In her 59-page ruling, Mizelle said the only remedy was to vacate the rule entirely across the country because it would be impossible to end it for the limited group of people who objected in the lawsuit.

The Justice Department declined to comment Monday when asked if the government planned to appeal the ruling. The CDC also declined to comment. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that federal agencies were still assessing the court decision Monday afternoon. Said Psaki: “This is obviously a disappointing decision. The CDC is recommending wearing a mask on public transit.”

The CDC recently extended the mask mandate, which was set to expire Monday, until May 3 to allow more time to study the BA.2 omicron sub-variant of the coronavirus that is now responsible for the vast majority of cases in the U.S. The mandate covered all types of transportation in the U.S. as well as requiring masks in any transportation hub, such as an airport, seaport or bus terminal. It wasn’t immediately clear Monday whether or not some of these entities would continue to require masks on their own.

Editorial credit: iisariya / Shutterstock.com