CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA has completed the first wet dress rehearsal for its upcoming Artemis II mission, a critical prelaunch test that fueled the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft ahead of the agency’s first crewed mission around the Moon since Apollo.
While teams successfully loaded cryogenic propellant, completed Orion closeout operations, and safely drained the rocket, a stubborn liquid hydrogen leak ultimately ruled out a February flight test for astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
“To me, the big takeaway was we got a chance for the rocket to talk to us and it did just that,” said John Honeycutt, Chair of the Artemis II Mission Management Team. “The test gave us exactly what we needed. It was an opportunity for us to ring out the system as well as the team before we ask our crew to go fly on launch day.”
NASA began the countdown late January 31, with engineers closely monitoring how uncharacteristically cold weather at Kennedy Space Center affected hardware and procedures. Cold temperatures delayed tanking operations as teams worked to bring several interfaces into acceptable temperature ranges before propellant loading could begin.
During tanking on February 2, engineers spent several hours troubleshooting a liquid hydrogen leak at an interface used to route propellant into the rocket’s core stage. Multiple attempts were made to resolve the issue, including stopping the flow of hydrogen, allowing seals to warm and reseat, and adjusting propellant flow rates. Although teams were able to fully fuel both the core stage and interim cryogenic propulsion stage, the ground launch sequencer ultimately halted the terminal countdown at about five minutes remaining after a spike in the leak rate.
In addition to the hydrogen leak, engineers addressed a valve associated with Orion’s crew module hatch pressurization that required adjustment. Closeout operations also took longer than planned, and several audio communication dropouts across ground teams reoccurred during the rehearsal. It’s an issue NASA has been troubleshooting for weeks.
Artemis Launch Director, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said, “We’ve got some work we’ve got to go do — and we’re going to go do it.”
NASA officials are hopeful the work ahead is expected to be completed at the launch pad and should not require rolling the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building.
“It appears that the work that’s in front of us can be done at the pad, and that’s what we anticipate,” said Lori Glaze, Acting Associate Administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.
With teams needing time to review data and conduct a second wet dress rehearsal, NASA is now targeting March as the earliest possible launch window. The shift also means the Artemis II crew was released from quarantine, which began January 21 in Houston, and will reenter quarantine about two weeks before the next targeted launch opportunity.
NASA says crew safety remains the highest priority as teams analyze test data, mitigate issues, and prepare for the next phase of testing ahead of setting an official launch date for Artemis II.
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