NASA will cease its launch in February Artemis II work after engineers encountered leaks, cold weather delays, and mechanical problems during a critical fuel-generation test that ended Tuesday morning.
Fuel loading issues were a reminder of the challenges space The agency faced 2022 when trying to launch Artemis Ithe unmanned maiden voyage of this program.
The decision pushes back an earlier launch in March and underscores the technical challenges facing Artemis II, NASA’s first lunar mission in more than 50 years and an important step in the effort to return humans to Earth. month and possibly Mars. The mission will send four astronauts – Commander Reid Wisemanpilot Victor Glover, Christina Hammock Koch, and Jeremy Hansen – on 10 day trip on the moon without landing, testing the life support systems of the Orion spacecraft. An important test flight before NASA puts boots on the lunar surface on Artemis III.
NASA concluded the so-called practicing a wet suit simulating descent operations by loading 700,000 gallons of supercooled fuel into a 322-foot Space Launch System rocket, sending a team to the pad to complete the task of sealing the capsule, then safely ejecting the propellant from the rocket. The test is designed to reveal problems before departure.
“Safety remains our top priority, for our astronauts, our crew, our programs and the public,” said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman. post to X. “We will only introduce it when we believe we are ready to do this historic task.”
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Engineers encountered several problems during the two-day countdown simulation that began on January 31 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, NASA said. The agency will review practice data and conduct additional fuel tests before setting an official launch date.
Going through the February launch window means that Artemis II astronauts he will leave isolation and not go to the Kennedy Space Center this week as planned. The team has been waiting in Houston at the Johnson Space Center since Jan. 21.
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NASA’s Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, right, is the launch director for the Artemis II mission.
Credit: NASA / Aubrey Gemignani
NASA said the astronauts will return to isolation about two weeks before the next planned launch opportunity. As released in February, the next window opens on March 6 and will continue until March 9, with one additional opportunity on March 11.
Cold weather at the launch site slowed operations immediately, delaying the start of the generator loading while teams worked on warm hardware connections.
During the water draw in Feb. 2, engineers spent several hours solving a leak of liquid hydrogen when the propellant entered the main stage of the rocket. The teams slowed down the hydrogen flow, allowed the hardware to warm up to reseal, and adjusted the flow rates.
Despite the delay, the engineers eventually filled all the tanks. The five-person team then moved to the opening to complete the Orion closeout operation as if the astronauts were there and boarded the spacecraft.
The test ended early with about five minutes left in the countdown. The ground-start tracker automatically stops after the sensors detect a spike in hydrogen leakage.
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Why hydrogen leaks in a plague rocket is launched
Liquid hydrogen belongs to NASA oil of your choice decades because it has a low molecular weight. That is ideal to keep the tanks as simple as possible. It also helps that hydrogen burns with great energy.
But the reason hydrogen leakage it seems that the initiation of stymie is that those small molecules are difficult to fight, they come out of any crack or crack. The very cold temperature of the fuel can cause the rocket materials to shrink and shrink, leaving small gaps for the propeller to escape.
NASA reported several other problems during the experiment. The valve connected to the Orion hatch pressure needs to be re-tightened after a recent replacement. The final exit took longer than expected. The cold temperatures disrupted many cameras and other equipment, which would have required more attention if that had happened on launch day.
Developers also experienced intermittent audio communication drops across all lower groups, a problem they’ve apparently been working on for weeks.
“Repairing these missions means returning to the Moon for landing,” Isaacman said, “and the future of Artemis 100 and beyond.”
