NASA announced Tuesday that it’s pushing the launch of its Artemis II moon mission to March after finding fuel leaks during testing this week.
The 10-day crewed mission is aimed at carrying astronauts around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The mission is scheduled to lift off from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket the agency has ever built.
"NASA concluded a wet dress rehearsal for the agency’s Artemis II test flight early Tuesday morning, successfully loading cryogenic propellant into the SLS (Space Launch System) tanks, sending a team out to the launch pad to closeout [the] Orion [spacecraft], and safely draining the rocket. The wet dress rehearsal was a prelaunch test to fuel the rocket, designed to identify any issues and resolve them before attempting a launch," NASA said.
"Engineers pushed through several challenges during the two-day test and met many of the planned objectives. To allow teams to review data and conduct a second wet dress rehearsal, NASA now will target March as the earliest possible launch opportunity for the flight test," it added.
Launch controllers Monday began loading the 322-foot rocket with super-cold hydrogen and oxygen at midday. More than 700,000 gallons had to flow into the tanks and remain on board for several hours, mimicking the final stages of an actual countdown.
But excessive hydrogen quickly built up near the bottom of the rocket. Hydrogen loading was halted at least twice as the launch team scrambled to work around the problem using techniques developed during the previous Space Launch System countdown in 2022. That first test flight was plagued by hydrogen leaks before finally soaring without a crew.
Artemis II follows the uncrewed Artemis I mission and will serve as a critical test of NASA’s deep-space systems before astronauts attempt a lunar landing on a future flight.
NASA says the mission is a key step toward long-term lunar exploration and eventual crewed missions to Mars.
Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner and The Associated Press contributed to this report.