NASA ran into a problem while fueling its new moon rocket on Monday during a final test that will decide when astronauts can launch for a lunar fly-around.
The team started filling the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket at Kennedy Space Center with super-cold hydrogen and oxygen around midday. They needed to load over 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) into the tanks and keep it there for several hours, simulating the final countdown before a real launch, according to a report by Associated Press (AP).
Just a couple of hours into the process, sensors detected too much hydrogen near the bottom of the rocket. Fueling was paused, with only half of the core stage filled.
Using past experience to fix problem
The team quickly worked to fix the problem using methods developed during the only previous Space Launch System flight three years ago, which also had hydrogen leaks before finally taking off.
The astronauts – three Americans and one Canadian – watched the critical rehearsal from Houston, nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away. They have been in quarantine for the past week and a half, waiting to see how the practice countdown went, the report mentioned.
This full-day test will decide when NASA can launch the first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years.
The countdown started two days late because of cold weather. NASA paused the clocks just half a minute before engine ignition so controllers could go through all the steps and address any problems, like hydrogen leaks, which delayed the first SLS rocket for months in 2022.
If fueling finishes successfully, commander Reid Wiseman and his crew could launch as soon as Sunday. The rocket must fly by February 11, or the mission will be postponed until March. NASA has only a few days each month to launch, and the recent cold has already shortened February’s window, as per the AP report.
NASA mission details
The mission will last nearly 10 days. The astronauts will fly past the moon, circle its far side and return to Earth. They will test the capsule’s life support and other key systems but won’t orbit the moon or land.
NASA last sent astronauts to the moon during the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s. The Artemis program, starting with Wiseman’s crew, aims for a longer-term human presence on the moon and sets the stage for future moon landings.