NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Saturday the agency is looking at ways to prevent the fueling problems plaguing the Space Launch System rocket before the Artemis III mission.
Artemis III is slated to be the first crew mission to land on the Moon since the Apollo program more than 50 years ago. As for Artemis II, which remains on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida after missing a launch window earlier this month, NASA is preparing for a second countdown rehearsal as soon as next week to confirm whether technicians have resolved a hydrogen fuel leak that cut short a practice countdown run February 2.
Artemis II is the first crew flight for SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. The nearly 10-day mission will carry four astronauts around the far side of the Moon and return them to Earth.
Again and again
Fuel leaks are nothing new for the Space Launch System. The same kind of leak delayed the first test flight of the SLS rocket for several months in 2022. With that launch, ground teams thought they fixed the problem by changing how they load super-cold liquid hydrogen into the rocket’s core stage. The launch team used the same loading procedure February 2, but the leak cropped up again.
“Considering the issues observed during the lead-up to Artemis I, and the long duration between missions, we should not be surprised there are challenges entering the Artemis II campaign,” Isaacman wrote Saturday in an update on the social media site X. “That does not excuse the situation, but we understand it. I am impressed with the NASA team and our contractors working diligently through the campaign.”
Engineers traced the fueling issues to ground support equipment. Specifically, the hydrogen leaks originate in the area where fueling lines on the rocket’s launch platform connect to the bottom of the core stage. Two Tail Service Mast Umbilicals, or TSMUs, route liquid hydrogen and and liquid oxygen into the rocket during the countdown, then disconnect and retract into protective housings at liftoff.