NASA Scrubs Artemis 1 Yet Again Due to Hydrogen Leak

NASA aborted its second attempt to launch the Artemis I mission into lunar orbit on Saturday morning. This time, the problem was caused by a leak of liquid hydrogen, which appeared while the crew assembled the rocket's core stage. Jim Free, an assistant administrator at NASA Headquarters, said we shouldn't anticipate a third try within this launch season, which concludes on Tuesday, at a press conference later in the day.

The leak, which occurred "while loading the propellant into the core stage of the Space Launch System rocket," occurred "while loading the propellant into the rocket," the space agency claims. "Multiple troubleshooting efforts to address the area of the leak, by reseating a seal in the quick disconnect where liquid hydrogen is fed into the rocket, did not fix the issue."

The Artemis I mission has already been postponed twice. Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson had to cancel liftoff attempt No. 1 on Monday as well due to a persistent issue with a procedure known as an engine bleed test.

This procedure is intended to enable the engines to cool to the proper temperature by releasing a little gasoline.

"We were unable to get the engines within the thermal conditions required to commit to launch," Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin said during a press conference Tuesday per CNet.

NASA Scrubs Artemis 1 Launch Yet Again

On Monday morning, the initial attempt by the space agency to launch this rocket had to be aborted because a sensor showed that one of the rocket's four engines didn't appear to be cooling down to the required temperature of around minus-420 degrees Fahrenheit.

Officials stated that it was obvious the engine was OK, and a sensor provided a misleading temperature reading after researching the issue and troubleshooting.

"We know we had a bad sensor," said John Honeycutt, program manager for this rocket at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (per NPR).

Then, on Saturday, when personnel were working to refuel the rocket, they frequently discovered a leak of liquid hydrogen, which required them to pause and restart the fuelling procedure many times.

Before falling so far behind schedule that Blackwell-Thompson finally waved off the launch, NASA made three fruitless attempts to fix the leak.

(Photo: Red Huber/Getty Images)
The Artemis 1 Moon rocket with the Orion capsule sits on Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center on April 8, 2022, in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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When Will NASA Launch The Rocket?

The next launch attempt would likely occur in mid- to late-October, after a scheduled crew mission to the International Space Station launches earlier that month, according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, if the SLS rolls back into the VAB for repairs. The Verge said it takes many hours to move the megarocket back to the VAB.

NASA had 20 days to launch the rocket. If something goes wrong during launch and flight, the Space Force can activate the termination device aboard the rocket to kill it. NASA granted a 25-day extension, but that period is almost gone. It must return to the VAB unless NASA is granted another extension.