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NASA encountered a leak while propelling its new moon rocket Monday in one final test that will determine when astronauts can begin lunar flights.
The launch team began loading the 98-foot rocket with supercooled hydrogen and oxygen at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at noon. More than 2.6 million liters had to flow into the tanks and sit for several hours, simulating the final stages of a real descent.
But just a few hours into the day’s operation, excess hydrogen was found near the bottom of the rocket. Hydrogen loading was temporarily suspended, filling half of the core stage.
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Uploading resumed an hour later, but was briefly halted again until resuming just after 4pm ET.
The Space Launch System (SLS) launch team is trying to tackle this problem using techniques developed during the launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) rockets three years ago. That first test flight suffered from a hydrogen leak before it took off.
The crew – Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency and NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch – monitored the critical clothing training from 1,600 kilometers away in Houston, home of the Johnson Space Center. They stayed in isolation for a week and a half, waiting for the result of the exercise calculation.
The day’s work will determine when they may erupt in the first lunar mission by workers in more than half a century.
If Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen is unable to continue NASA’s Artemis II mission, Jenni Gibbons is ready to take his place. He tells The National’s Ian Hanomansing about his role as an astronaut supporter and what inspired him to pursue a career in space exploration.
Weather delay
Running after two days of freezing cold, NASA stopped its countdown clocks half a minute before reaching zero, just before the engine ignited.
The clocks started ticking on Saturday night, giving launch controllers a chance to address all issues and deal with any problems with the rockets. Hydrogen leaks kept the first SLS rocket on the pad for months in 2022.
If the refueling demo can be successfully completed on time, NASA could launch Commander Wiseman and his crew on the moon as soon as Sunday.
The rocket must fly on February 11, or the mission will be suspended until March. The space agency only has a few days in any given month to launch a rocket, and the extreme cold has already shortened the February launch window by two days.
The nearly 10-day mission will send astronauts past the moon, around the far side of the puzzle and back to Earth, with the goal of testing the life support capsule and other critical systems. Crews will not go to lunar orbit or attempt to land.
NASA last sent astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s. The new Artemis program aims for a stable lunar presence, with Wiseman’s crew setting the stage for future lunar landings by other astronauts.
