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. space Dec 27, 2025 2026 will be the year NASA astronauts fly around the moon again — if all goes to plan Space Exploration Dec 5, 2024 NASA again pushes back Artemis II mission, further delaying moon program 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.” The hourslong rehearsal involved filling the Space Launch System rocket with more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellant and simulating each step of the launch countdown as would occur on the actual day. During the fueling process, which got underway at around 12:30 p.m. ET on Monday, mission managers twice paused proceedings to investigate leaking hydrogen fuel at the tail end of the rocket. Despite eventually pressing on and conducting tests of the Orion spacecraft, which sits atop the rocket, the hydrogen leaks cropped up again in the final minutes of the simulated launch countdown. NASA said that systems aboard the rocket that are designed to take over control of the booster in the final minutes before liftoff “automatically stopped the countdown due to a spike in the liquid hydrogen leak rate.” Additionally, engineers will investigate several audio issues in communications channels used by ground teams that occurred during the wet dress rehearsal. The four astronauts who were set to fly on the Artemis II flight — NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — were set to arrive at Kennedy Space Center Tuesday afternoon. They had been in quarantine in Houston since Jan. 21 to protect against preflight exposure to germs. But NASA said the astronauts will now be released from quarantine and will not travel to Florida as planned. Instead, the crew will enter quarantine again roughly two weeks before the next targeted launch opportunity, according to the agency. Artemis II will be the second trip to space for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, but the first time they carry humans. The much-anticipated launch is expected to represent a crucial step toward realizing NASA’s goal of returning astronauts to the lunar surface. A previous uncrewed Artemis I flight around the moon in 2022 was delayed six months because of hydrogen leaks identified during its first wet dress rehearsal. With humans set to fly aboard the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule for the first time, the stakes for the Artemis II flight are high. “As always, safety remains our top priority, for our astronauts, our workforce, our systems, and the public,” Isaacman said on X, adding that NASA “will only launch when we believe we are ready to undertake this historic mission.” ...read more read less