NASA will forego a February launch for its Artemis II mission after engineers ran into leaks, cold-weather delays, and equipment problems during a key fueling test that ended early Tuesday morning.
The fuel-loading problems were reminiscent of the challenges the space agency faced in 2022 when it attempted to launch Artemis I, the uncrewed maiden voyage of the program.
The decision pushes the earliest possible launch to March and underscores the technical challenges facing Artemis II, NASA’s first crewed lunar mission in more than 50 years and a critical step in the effort to return humans to the moon and possibly Mars. The mission will send four astronauts — Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Hammock Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — on a 10-day journey around the moon without landing, testing the Orion spaceship’s life-support systems. It’s a key test flight before NASA puts boots on the lunar surface in Artemis III.
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