After NASA Scraps Launch, LI Man Who Worked On Rocket Says It's No Failure

BAYPORT, NY — A Long Island native who worked on the moon-bound Artemis I rocket that failed to launch on Monday, says that this is only a minor setback in the highly anticipated project.

Ray Lundquist, an enterprise CSI engineering program manager for NASA's Artemis I rocket, spoke with Patch about the project and the rescheduling of its launch.

"It's definitely not a failure," he said. "This is part of the process of getting toward launch."

According to its website, the Artemis mission intends to send humans to the moon to further study its surface — and gather enough data to eventually send astronauts to Mars.

The first phase, Artemis I, involves sending an uncrewed flight test of the Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft around the moon. In 2024, Artemis II intends to send a crew of astronauts to the moon.

Although scheduled to launch on Monday morning, the Artemis I lift off was scrubbed last minute.

Lundquist said that up until this morning, conditions were "picture perfect" and on schedule.

"Everything looked like it was good. The weather was perfect. The vehicles were in good shape," he said.

However, NASA was unable to resolve a temperature problem identified with one of the four liquid-fueled engines, discovered with under two hours to go in the countdown.

"After fully tanking the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, engineers discovered an issue with one of the four RS-25 engines not reaching the proper temperatures during a planned engine bleed test," NASA wrote in a social media post. "As a result, we decided to postpone the launch today. Teams will come together to look at the data and determine a new launch date.⁣"

Lundquidst told Patch that, however, the engines themselves definitely work because of testing during a wet dress rehearsal, or practice run, nine months ago in Greenlawn, Louisiana.

"The engines are in good shape," he said. "It's just a matter of getting the propellant through it.

The Bayport native recently spoke with Patch about his work on the cameras of the James Webb telescope. On the Artemis project, Lundquist said he works under the chief engineer and focuses on key analysis, trajectory analysis, aerodynamics analysis, and coordination across the program.

While he's worked on the project since 2016, he isn't frustrated at the launch's cancellation.

"You want to make sure you have these concerns eliminated for failure as best as you can," he said. " And this is one of those things. You need to have the engines cooled and running before you start them up."

The launch is expected to be rescheduled for Friday.