NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission passes crucial fueling test despite leak - Space.com

The Artemis 1 team managed to fully fuel the Space Launch System rocket.

NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission completed a crucial preflight milestone today (June 20), wrapping up a two-day set of tests known as a wet dress rehearsal. .

Those tests included fueling up Artemis 1's huge Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and performing a simulated countdown that took the vehicle and NASA's Orion capsule through most of the progressions they would endure on launch day before engine ignition.

Related: NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission explained in photos.

"It's a great day for our team," Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director with the Exploration Ground Systems Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, said during a webcast of the wet dress just after it wrapped up.

The wet dress was the final major milestone that Artemis 1 needed to complete before launch.

On the actual mission, the SLS rocket will launch an uncrewed Orion on a roughly month-long journey to the moon and back.

If Artemis 1 goes well, NASA plans to fly astronauts aboard Artemis 2 and Artemis 3, with the latter mission putting astronauts down on the moon in four years or so.

The SLS core stage was powered up next, early on Sunday morning (June 19), followed by a series of systems checks to confirm connections between the spacecraft, ground infrastructure and boards in mission control.

In an official blog post, NASA stated that ground crews on Sunday afternoon were "performing a pre-launch walk down of the rocket to ensure the Space Launch System is prepared for the upcoming propellant loading operations.".

Related: NASA's new moon rocket spotted from space rolling to the launch pad (photos).

The Artemis 1 team rolled the Artemis 1 stack back to the VAB on April 25, then spent about a month making repairs and upgrades to pave the way for another wet dress try.

During that time, mission managers conducted weather and vehicle tanking briefings and had originally received a "go" from Blackwell-Thompson, but the hold was extended when operators encountered an issue with a supply valve in Pad 39B's redundant gaseous nitrogen system.

The two stages of the SLS rocket are fueled with liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid hydrogen (LH2).

LOX slow-fill loading for the SLS core stage began this morning at 10:08 a.m.

In what's known as the "aft strut constraint," which refers to stress put on the connection points for the bottom of the SLS's solid rocket boosters, according to Nail, the core stage LOX tank cannot fill past 49% until the LH2 tank's depletion sensors are completely covered. .

To accommodate for some of the morning's lost time, mission operators were able to speed up LH2 chill-down procedures for propellant and umbilical lines.

The core stage LOX tank was topped off and began its boil-off replenishing flow at 1:30 p.m.

However, Nail reported on the NASA broadcast that operators had encountered data indicating a hydrogen leak in the core stage tail service mast umbilical bleed line quick disconnect, a point where a line connecting the SLS and MLP are designed to separate during launch!

Related: Every mission to the moon.

— NASA's Artemis program of lunar exploration (reference)— Artemis 1: Going back to the moon.

The Artemis 1 team spent some time troubleshooting the issue!

 The Artemis 1 team will now spend some time figuring out just how those operations went.

NASA has categorized launch windows based on the alignment of various mission parameters influenced by the moon's orbital position

If checks in the VAB go smoothly, it's possible NASA will target the schedule's earliest long mission opportunity, which would kick off with a launch on Aug

 He has covered everything from rocket launches and NASA's Artemis 1 Space Launch System megarocket to SpaceX astronaut launches for NASA

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