NASA was pressured to finish a essential fueling take a look at of its large Artemis 2 rocket early within the wee hours of Tuesday, delaying its mission to launch astronauts across the moon by no less than a month. Now {that a} new day has dawned on the large orange launch automobile, the house company is trying to shed some gentle on what precisely went incorrect — and plenty of what it is saying sounds acquainted.
The fueling testfor NASA’s Artemis 2 Area Launch System (SLS) rocket started late Saturday (Jan. 31), and ran till Tuesday morning. Known as a “moist costume rehearsal,” it is a take a look at to place the SLS launch automobile and floor groups by way of a simulated countdown clock to completely power-on and gas the rocket with the greater than 700,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen it must get off the bottom.
If that sounds acquainted, it is as a result of the Artemis 1 SLS skilled hydrogen leaks in the identical location throughout its moist costume rehearsal three years in the past. These leaks resulted in three separate rollbacks to NASA’s cavernous Car Meeting Constructing (VAB) over the course of six months earlier than Artemis 1 would lastly launch.
Artemis 1 launched in November 2022 and flew an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a month-long mission to lunar orbit and again.
With Artemis 2, NASA will take a look at Orion’s means to maintain astronauts in deep house. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will experience aboard Orion on a 10-day mission across the far aspect of the moon. The flight will qualify the spacecraft’s methods for Artemis 3, which NASA is planning because the mission to land astronauts again on the lunar floor.
“We actually did be taught rather a lot from the Artemis 1 mission, and we applied plenty of the teachings discovered yesterday by way of moist costume,” Lori Glaze, NASA’s Exploration Programs Growth Mission Directorate appearing affiliate administrator, mentioned throughout a post-wet costume rehearsal press convention on Tuesday.
“Everybody’s conscious of a number of the challenges with the hydrogen tanking from Artemis 1, and we have made some modifications,” Glaze mentioned.
To NASA’s credit score, the Artemis 2 moist costume rehearsal went far smoother than Artemis 1’s first fueling take a look at.
Regardless of the hours of troubleshooting the persistent hydrogen leak — which NASA officers say was stabilized inside acceptable limits (however by no means eradicated) —mission operators managed to completely gas each SLS phases and carry the take a look at all the way down to the simulated clock’s terminal depend (the final 10 minutes earlier than liftoff). However the crew did not fairly get as near T-0 as wanted with the intention to earn NASA’s gold stamp of approval to launch with a crew onboard.
“The truth that we acquired to full tanking yesterday on the primary attempt was an incredible success, and we gathered an unlimited quantity of knowledge within the processes and the way we wish to go ahead with that sooner or later,” Glaze mentioned.
At T-5 minutes 15 seconds, the SLS floor launch sequencer terminated the depend because of a spike in the identical fast disconnect hydrogen leak it had skilled all afternoon, which was trigger to abort the take a look at, NASA mentioned.
“As we started that pressurization, we did see that the leak inside the cavity got here up fairly fast,” Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson mentioned throughout Tuesday’s press briefing, referring to a cavity on the rocket’s mast umbilical. The exercise triggered security procedures already in place for such contingencies, she added.
“We acquired into our security steps. We noticed the hydrogen focus come down after which later within the night, we acquired into our drain operation,” she mentioned.
Whereas sustaining the moist costume rehearsal an total success by way of information gathered and the accolade of filling SLS’s tanks on the primary attempt, Blackwell-Thompson additionally assured that, in contrast to Artemis 1, the hydrogen hiccups can doubtless be addressed on the pad, and do not appear to warrant a rollback to the VAB for upkeep.
“Throughout Artemis 1, we came upon that we are able to do some work on these plates on the pad,” Blackwell-Thompson mentioned. “I had hoped that we might not should show that once more for Artemis 2, however we confirmed that we are able to go do that work on the pad and be prepared for launch.”
As for why SLS remains to be experiencing these identical hydrogen leaks after three years between missions, NASA officers have some theories, however have not fairly nailed down a definitive trigger. “These are very bespoke parts,” NASA Affiliate Administrator Amit Kshatriya mentioned Tuesday, describing every SLS as its personal distinctive automobile to be taught and perceive.
The leaky seal may probably be a results of vibrations incurred in the course of the rocket’s preliminary rollout to the pad,, Kshatriya mentioned. It took the Artemis 2 SLS rocket almost 12 hours to make the 4-mile journey to the pad from the VAB at a high velocity of 1 mile an hour final month.
“That rollout setting could be very difficult,” he added, noting that the Artemis 1 SLS was put by way of totally different acceleration assessments on its manner between the VAB and the pad at Launch Complicated-39B particularly to assist decide the impact of such stresses on the rocket and launch platform. “We predict that is a contributor. However once more, we have now to tear the seal aside and see what occurred.”
“That is the primary time this specific machine has borne witness to cryogens. And the way it breathes, and the way it vents, and the way it needs to leak is one thing we have now to characterize,” Kshatriya mentioned, and testing earlier than the launch pad can solely go thus far.
Even with an “aggressive strategy” to coping with hydrogen leaks throughout Artemis 1, “we’re fairly restricted as to how a lot realism we are able to put into the take a look at,” mentioned John Honeycutt, the chair of NASA’s Artemis Mission Administration crew. “We attempt to take a look at like we fly, however this interface is a really advanced interface, and if you’re coping with hydrogen, it is a small molecule, it is extremely energetic,” he mentioned, admitting he and mission managers weren’t anticipating these points to crop up once more.
“This one caught us off guard,” Honeycutt added. “The preliminary issues that we had been seeing within the technical crew felt like we both had some kind of misalignment or some kind of deformation or particles on the seal.”
With the conclusion of the moist costume rehearsal at the moment, we’re shifting off the February launch window and concentrating on March for the earliest potential launch of Artemis II.With greater than three years between SLS launches, we absolutely anticipated encountering challenges. That’s exactly…February 3, 2026
NASA wants to judge the rocket and floor infrastructure on the pad earlier than figuring out the following potential date to aim one other moist costume rehearsal, and has opted to forgo Artemis 2’s February launch alternative, which, had the take a look at gone efficiently, spanned from Feb. 8-11.
“With greater than three years between SLS launches, we absolutely anticipated encountering challenges,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a post on X early Tuesday. “That’s exactly why we conduct a moist costume rehearsal. These assessments are designed to floor points earlier than flight and arrange launch day with the very best chance of success.”
Mission managers are actually concentrating on subsequent month’s window, which is open March 6-9 and March 11, with about 5 days accessible across the first week of every month thereafter.
