From Breitbart: NASA announced Tuesday it is delaying its highly anticipated Artemis II mission to send four astronauts around the moon after engineers encountered hydrogen fuel leaks during a critical launch rehearsal at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A very similar problem caused a six month delay to an Artemis mission in 2022.
NBC News reports that NASA announced Tuesday it is delaying its highly anticipated Artemis II mission to send four astronauts around the moon after engineers encountered hydrogen fuel leaks during a critical launch rehearsal at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The space agency was conducting what is known as a wet dress rehearsal, an elaborate launch day walkthrough designed to test all systems and procedures before an actual launch, when engineers detected hydrogen leaking at the base of the Space Launch System rocket. The issues forced NASA to halt the test with approximately five minutes and fifteen seconds remaining in the simulated launch countdown.
Due to the leak, NASA made the decision to skip the February launch window, which had been scheduled to run through February 11, for the Artemis II mission. The agency stated it would target March as the earliest possible launch opportunity to allow teams adequate time to review data and conduct another wet dress rehearsal.
NASA said launch opportunities for Artemis II are available from March 6–9 and March 11, with backup dates in April if needed.
Speaking at a Tuesday briefing, John Honeycutt said the recent wet dress rehearsal allowed the rocket to “talk to us,” stressing the test is meant to fully exercise the system before astronauts fly. The rehearsals are a standard step to assess readiness, especially critical for Artemis II since the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft have never launched with a crew and last flew in late 2022, when hydrogen leaks also caused delays.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman addressed the delay in a post on social media platform X: “With more than three years between SLS launches, we fully anticipated encountering challenges. That is precisely why we conduct a wet dress rehearsal. These tests are designed to surface issues before flight and set up launch day with the highest probability of success.”
The hours-long rehearsal involved loading the rocket with more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellant and running a full launch-day countdown simulation. Fueling began around 12:30 p.m. ET Monday but was paused twice as teams investigated hydrogen leaks near the base of the rocket. While liquid hydrogen and oxygen are standard rocket propellants, hydrogen’s tiny molecules make it especially difficult to contain, increasing the risk of leaks.
“When you’re dealing with hydrogen, it’s a small molecule, it’s highly energetic,” Honeycutt said. “We like it for that reason. And we do the best we can.”
NASA said hydrogen leak problems continued into the final minutes of the simulated countdown, prompting onboard systems to automatically halt the sequence after detecting a spike in liquid hydrogen leakage. Engineers are also reviewing several audio issues that affected ground-team communications during the wet dress rehearsal.
Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson stated in the briefing, “We’ll figure it out, and we’ll be back here talking to you once again about when we’re going to target our next wet dress and the results from that.”
In a statement posted on X, Wiseman said he and his fellow crew members had breakfast with their families and will resume training on Wednesday. “Immense pride seeing the rocket reach 100% fuel load last night, especially knowing how challenging the scenario was for our launch team doing the dangerous and unforgiving work,” he wrote.
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