It’s kind of wild that I never heard about this. Space exploration really has dropped off the map news/media wise.
brcmthrowaway 2 hours ago [-]
Lunar surface?
bhhaskin 2 hours ago [-]
Fly-by
abeppu 4 hours ago [-]
April 1 is an in interesting choice for a big event that will be news if it goes well and bigger news if it goes badly
jedberg 4 hours ago [-]
They don't really have a choice. The launch window is small and they either make it or they don't.
philipwhiuk 3 hours ago [-]
There is a window on the 2nd. But you don't aim for the second half of the launch period and hope you make it, you aim for the start to allow time to resolve issues without waiting for the next window (which is the end of the month).
echelon 3 hours ago [-]
What factors are there for the lunar launch window?
It can't be weather, here, right? That's too far ahead.
Is it perigee?
If this window is missed, when is the next one?
jedberg 3 hours ago [-]
The position of the moon relative to the earth and the sun. The windows are about a month apart.
ohyoutravel 3 hours ago [-]
Well at least there’s a 50% probability of success
hypeatei 3 hours ago [-]
"April fools, your space shuttle just disintegrated!"
mikkupikku 4 hours ago [-]
Can't they just schedule it for March 32nd?
AverageSavage 3 hours ago [-]
They are snip hunting that day.
la3lma 3 hours ago [-]
Surely they are joking?
pfdietz 3 hours ago [-]
The whole program is a joke.
AverageSavage 3 hours ago [-]
Operation: Sike! is a go! ;)
edgyquant 4 hours ago [-]
“As early as April 1” is a weird way to describe something that is two months behind schedule
NitpickLawyer 4 hours ago [-]
That's probably a "layman's terms" translation of a more technical term NET April 1, which would be "Not Earlier Than" and is widely used in the industry.
StableAlkyne 4 hours ago [-]
Being a few months behind schedule is forgivable for human space flight.
If a SpaceX Falcon blows up on the pad, that's one thing. It's expensive but they accept that risk to move faster. At least they gain knowledge of what failed, to do better next time.
You can't apply that mentality once a human is piloting it however. That's how you get Columbia, Challenger, or Apollo 1.
philipwhiuk 3 hours ago [-]
> If a SpaceX Falcon blows up on the pad, that's one thing. It's expensive but they accept that risk to move faster. At least they gain knowledge of what failed, to do better next time.
Assuming it's not carrying a SpaceX Crew Dragon with crew onboard ;)
Also, it's a bit of a dated metaphor. Falcon 9 is by most accounts, now the most reliable rocket in history and is pretty design-locked. The modern metaphor is SpaceX Starship :)
bcraven 3 hours ago [-]
As it's currently March, April seems very close to me. I didn't know there was a moon flight planned so this is a great headline to me.
bombcar 3 hours ago [-]
I didn't even know we were within years of putting people around the moon, so I was surprised!
throwawaymobule 2 hours ago [-]
Scott Manley does a roundup video every two or so weeks called 'deep space updates' that I suggest watching.
The start is all rocket launches, which gives a good idea of how much is happening.
dylan604 3 hours ago [-]
Seeing how the last test at the beginning of Feb found hydrogen leaks, it does sound very early to me
tekla 3 hours ago [-]
Why? They fixed it.
dylan604 2 hours ago [-]
In a month is why. It seems if it was fixed that fast it was easy to find. If it was so easy to find, why was it not found. These are the types of questions that seem to make NASA push things further than just a month. So again, it seems fast to me
tekla 2 hours ago [-]
It feels fast to you because you don't know what happened, and you are asking questions that have been answered by NASA already in public.
It was easy to find because they knew what valve was leaking.
It was not found beforehand because they don't have the ability to do the tanking test without rolling it to the launch pad and its very hard to know how a system responds to liquid hydrogen.
Insanity 4 hours ago [-]
Messaging is everything!
u1hcw9nx 3 hours ago [-]
Six day launch window April 1-6.
Rendered at 20:09:52 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Starship 3 first launch will be in April as well https://www.caller.com/story/news/local/2026/03/11/spacex-st...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_I
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_Flight_Test-1
It can't be weather, here, right? That's too far ahead.
Is it perigee?
If this window is missed, when is the next one?
If a SpaceX Falcon blows up on the pad, that's one thing. It's expensive but they accept that risk to move faster. At least they gain knowledge of what failed, to do better next time.
You can't apply that mentality once a human is piloting it however. That's how you get Columbia, Challenger, or Apollo 1.
Assuming it's not carrying a SpaceX Crew Dragon with crew onboard ;)
Also, it's a bit of a dated metaphor. Falcon 9 is by most accounts, now the most reliable rocket in history and is pretty design-locked. The modern metaphor is SpaceX Starship :)
The start is all rocket launches, which gives a good idea of how much is happening.
It was easy to find because they knew what valve was leaking.
It was not found beforehand because they don't have the ability to do the tanking test without rolling it to the launch pad and its very hard to know how a system responds to liquid hydrogen.