Uh Oh: NASA Delays Moon Launch After Experiencing Issues During Rehearsals

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NASA’s highly anticipated launch to the moon is delayed for now.

NASA has announced that its mission to send several astronauts on a trip around the moon, scheduled for next week, has been canceled.

The launch was suddenly cancelled after engineers at NASA noticed a leak coming from a key component of its Space Launch System.

NBC News broke the story and gave in-depth details on what went wrong:

NASA said Tuesday it was delaying its mission to send four astronauts on a journey around the moon, after issues arose during a critical test of its enormous rocket.

Mission managers were conducting an elaborate launch day walkthrough, known as a “wet dress rehearsal,” at Kennedy Space Center in Florida when engineers detected leaking hydrogen at the base of the Space Launch System rocket. NASA was forced to end the test a little after midnight ET, with around 5 minutes and 15 seconds remaining in the simulated launch countdown.

Shortly after 2 a.m. ET on Tuesday, NASA announced it would forgo February’s launch window for the Artemis II mission around the moon, which extended from Friday through Feb. 11, to allow teams to review data and conduct another wet dress rehearsal. It said it will now aim for March “as the earliest possible launch opportunity.”

The space agency has said there are available launch opportunities from March 6 through March 9, and on March 11, with additional dates in April, if needed.

NASA’s wet dress rehearsal was essentially an elaborate launch day walkthrough that allowed mission managers to assess the performance and readiness of the rocket. Officials are expected to discuss early results from the test in a briefing on Tuesday at 12 p.m. ET.

“With more than three years between SLS launches, we fully anticipated encountering challenges,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote in a post on X. “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.”

Take a look at the announcement below:

Read the official press release from NASA below:

Engineers pushed through several challenges during the two-day test and met many of the planned objectives. To allow teams to review data and conduct a second wet dress rehearsal, NASA now will target March as the earliest possible launch opportunity for the flight test.

Moving off a February launch window also means the Artemis II astronauts will be released from quarantine, which they entered in Houston on Jan. 21. As a result, they will not travel to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida Tuesday as tentatively planned. Crew will enter quarantine again about two weeks out from the next targeted launch opportunity.

NASA began the approximately 49-hour countdown at 8:13 p.m. EST on Jan. 31. Leading up to, and throughout tanking operations on Feb. 2, engineers monitored how cold weather at Kennedy impacted systems and put procedures in place to keep hardware safe. Cold temperatures caused a late start to tanking operations, as it took time to bring some interfaces to acceptable temperatures before propellant loading operations began.

During tanking, engineers spent several hours troubleshooting a liquid hydrogen leak in an interface used to route the cryogenic propellant into the rocket’s core stage, putting them behind in the countdown. Attempts to resolve the issue involved stopping the flow of liquid hydrogen into the core stage, allowing the interface to warm up for the seals to reseat, and adjusting the flow of the propellant.

Teams successfully filled all tanks in both the core stage and interim cryogenic propulsion stage before a team of five was sent to the launch pad to finish Orion closeout operations. Engineers conducted a first run at terminal countdown operations during the test, counting down to approximately 5 minutes left in the countdown, before the ground launch sequencer automatically stopped the countdown due to a spike in the liquid hydrogen leak rate.

Many users on X are skeptical that the launch will ever take place:



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