NASA delays Artemis II launch due to hydrogen leak during rehearsal

NASA now says March is the earliest window for launch of the Artemis II mission after a liquid hydrogen leak was found this week during an event known as a “wet dress rehearsal.”

The space agency was targeting a Feb. 8 launch date for the mission, which will send four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon.

“To allow teams to review data and conduct a second wet dress rehearsal, NASA will now aim march as the earliest possible launch opportunity for flight testing,” the space agency said in a statement.

the team had started Loading millions of liters of hydrogen into rockets Monday afternoon as part of a rehearsal, before the leak was identified. NASA says its engineers spent several hours troubleshooting a leak around an interface that is used to send hydrogen to the rocket’s core stage, which left the team behind.

““Efforts to resolve the problem include stopping the flow of liquid hydrogen to the core stage, allowing the interface to warm to re-establish the seal, and adjusting the flow of propellant,” NASA said in its update.

According to NASA, there were also problems with a valve on the ship, while ground audio also stopped several times during rehearsals and the “closeout operation” took longer than planned.

one in post on xNASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the wet dress rehearsal was conducted “precisely” to root out such issues.

“These tests are designed to uncover issues before flight and determine the launch day with the highest probability of success,” Isaacman wrote.

“Safety remains our top pointReority…we will “Launch only when we are confident we are ready to accomplish this historic mission.”

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As a result of the changed schedule, NASA said the astronauts on the mission would be released from quarantine, which they first entered on January 21, in preparation for the February launch window. They will go back into quarantine approximately two weeks before the next launch opportunity.

The mission is the second in the billion-dollar Artemis moon program, following an unmanned flight in 2022. that was the first artemis flight Similarly, a hydrogen fuel leak caused delays.

Artemis II, consisting of Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and three American astronauts, is a precursor test to the Artemis III mission, which will land the agency’s first astronauts on the Moon since 1972. Rather than touching the moon’s surface, Artemis II aims to test the capsule’s life support and other critical functions of the ship.