Cape Canaveral, Florida – NASA took Another crack In fueling the giant moon rocket on Thursday after leaks halted the initial rehearsal and Delay of the first lunar mission Astronauts for more than half a century.
For the second time this month, launch teams pumped more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of ultra-cold fuel into the rocket atop the launch pad. They counted down to the half-minute mark as planned without reporting any noticeable leaks, then set the clocks back to run through the final ten minutes again. NASA announced the completion of the test late Thursday night.
It was the most important and challenging part of the two-day training countdown. The outcome will determine whether a March launch of the Artemis II lunar mission with four astronauts is possible.
During training two weeks ago Dangerous amounts of ultracold liquid hydrogen He escaped the connections between the pad and the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket. Engineers replaced a pair of seals and a clogged filter in hopes of passing repeatability testing at Kennedy Space Center.
NASA will not set a launch date for the Artemis II mission until it passes the refueling demonstration. Three American-Canadian crew members joined the launch team later in the day to monitor progress.
The soonest astronauts can fly is March 6. They will become the first people to fly to the moon — making a 10-day, non-stop round trip — since Apollo 17 in 1972. They will not orbit the moon or land.
NASA has been battling hydrogen fuel leaks since the Space Shuttle era, which powered many of the SLS engines. Artemis’ first test flight without anyone on board was halted for several months due to a hydrogen leak before finally launching in November 2022.
Years passing between flights exacerbates the problem, according to new NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, a technology entrepreneur who has funded his own flights to orbit through SpaceX.
After just two months of work, Isaacman has already promised to redesign the fuel connections between the rocket and the pad before the next Artemis III launch. In a few years, this mission will attempt to land two astronauts near the moon’s south pole.
“We will only launch if we are prepared and the safety of our astronauts will remain the top priority,” he said last week on the X programme.
Isaacman reiterated the need for safety in the middle of a refueling test Thursday, as he issued a scathing report on Boeing’s Starliner capsule program that left two astronauts stranded for months aboard the International Space Station. He said the crisis could have led to the loss of the crew, and placed the blame on Boeing and NASA leadership.
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