A hydrogen leak on the base of NASA’s Artemis II moon rocket on Monday threw a wrench right into a rigorously deliberate countdown “moist costume” rehearsal, interrupting a check meant to assist clear the best way towards a attainable weekend launch for four astronauts on a flight across the moon.
The follow countdown started Saturday night — two days late due to frigid weather alongside Florida’s House Coast — and after a gathering Monday morning to evaluate the climate and the staff’s readiness to proceed, launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson cleared engineers to start the remotely managed fueling operation.
NASA
The check obtained underway about 45 minutes later than deliberate, but it surely initially seemed to be continuing easily as supercold liquid oxygen and hydrogen gas had been pumped into the House Launch System rocket’s first-stage tanks. Shortly after, hydrogen started flowing into the rocket’s higher stage as deliberate.
However after the first-stage hydrogen tank was about 55% full, a leak was detected at an umbilical plate the place a gas line from the launch pad is related to the SLS rocket’s first stage. After a short pause, engineers resumed gas circulation however once more minimize it off with the tank about 77% full.
After extra dialogue, they determined to press forward to seek out out whether or not the leak would lower as anticipated as soon as the tank was full and in a replenishment mode when circulation charges are diminished.
It was not instantly identified how a lot the leakage exceeded NASA security margins or what troubleshooting steps had been initially carried out. Liquid oxygen loading of the primary stage continued all through and reached full capability of 196,000 gallons.
The countdown was timed for a simulated launch at 9 p.m. ET. Engineers initially deliberate to proceed a number of hours previous that to run by a number of recycle procedures meant to ensure the staff is able to deal with any issues and delays that may crop up throughout an actual countdown. How the leak would possibly have an effect on these plans was not instantly identified.
The SLS is the rocket NASA plans to make use of to ship Artemis astronauts to the moon aboard Orion crew capsules. It’s the strongest operational launcher on this planet, a towering 332-foot-tall rocket powered by two strap-on stable gas boosters and 4 most important engines burning liquid oxygen and hydrogen gas that generate 8.8 million kilos of thrust at liftoff.
Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are hoping to launch atop the SLS rocket as early as Sunday night time for a nine-day, two-hour flight across the moon and again. However solely three days in February are nonetheless attainable: Feb. 8, 10 and 11. If the SLS is not off the bottom by Feb. 11, the flight will slip to early March.
The SLS rocket’s first and thus far solely mission got here in 2022 when it was launched on an unpiloted check flight. Within the marketing campaign main as much as launch, engineers bumped into a wide range of issues starting from gas leaks to sudden propellant circulation habits within the launch pad’s plumbing. Launch was delayed for months whereas engineers labored to resolve the issues.
For the rocket’s second launch, a number of upgrades and enhancements had been applied, and Blackwell-Thompson mentioned she was optimistic the fueling check would go effectively.
“Why do we predict that we’ll achieve success? It is the teachings that we realized,” she mentioned final week.
“Artemis I used to be the check flight, and we realized so much throughout that marketing campaign, attending to launch,” she mentioned. “And the issues that we realized relative to how one can go load this automobile, how one can load LOX (liquid oxygen), how one can load hydrogen, have all been rolled in to the best way through which we intend to load the Artemis II automobile.”
However the gas leak threw the staff delayed, and it wasn’t clear how far the check would possibly proceed even when engineers had been capable of efficiently handle the hydrogen leak.
