The March launch of Artemis II, NASA’s first crewed trip to the lunar vicinity since the last Apollo mission more than 50 years ago, no longer appears likely. While preparations are underway at Kennedy Space Center for launch as early as March 6, the space agency said it encountered problems with the flow of helium in the upper stage of its SLS rocket this weekend and will now have to transport the rocket from the launch pad back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to identify the problem and fix it. A media briefing is planned for sometime this week to discuss the issue and next steps.
But in a post on X, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman confirmed that the rollback will “not take into account the March launch window.” NASA noted on its blog that the current effort “will likely retain an April launch window pending the results of data findings, repairs, and plans for how this will materialize in the coming days and weeks.” The trip back to the VAB is four miles and will take several hours to carefully transport the large rocket and Orion spacecraft. NASA said the hike is targeting February 24.
The problem occurred in the early hours of February 21, when NASA said it observed “an interruption in the flow of helium to the temporary cryogenic propulsion stage of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket.” The space agency explained:
The upper stage uses helium to maintain proper environmental conditions in the stage’s engines and to pressurize liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant tanks. The systems worked during NASA’s Artemis II wet rehearsals, but during normal operations and reconfiguration following the wet rehearsals, which ended on February 19, the team was unable to flow the helium correctly. Operators are using backup methods to maintain environmental conditions on the upper stage engine and rocket to keep them in a safe configuration.
The Artemis 2 crew — commander Reed Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronauts, mission specialist — had just gone into quarantine the day before the problem arose. NASA says the astronauts have been released from quarantine.
At the beginning of this year, NASA announced that it was accelerating the schedule for Artemis 2, originally scheduled for April 2026 after being delayed from 2024. The 10-day mission will be the first manned flight of the SLS rocket, with Artemis 2 astronauts orbiting the moon aboard the Orion spacecraft. While the initial target was early February, the launch was pushed back to March due to issues during wetsuit rehearsals. Now, we’re back to square one, with a possible release in April, but it depends on whether the fix is quick.