NASA Delays Moon Mission After Noticing Issue With “Hydrogen Leak”

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This countdown to liftoff has been extended.  

NASA has postponed the launch of Artemis II, the mission to send four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon and return. The delay is due to a liquid hydrogen leak discovered in the rocket, called the Space Launch System (SLS).

Space agency officials discovered a problem during a two-day practice run—a pre-launch test meant to find potential issues with the SLS rocket—at the Kennedy Space Center.

The test began on January 31st, but a problem forced NASA to stop it on February 3rd.

NASA paused the flow of liquid hydrogen into the rocket’s core stage to let the connections warm up and hopefully reseal. They also adjusted the propellant flow while trying to fix the problem. Because teams need time to analyze the data and do another practice run, NASA is now aiming for a launch no earlier than March.

Due to the delay, the Artemis II astronauts—Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen—will be released from their pre-launch quarantine until a new launch date is set.

Even though this setback might push the Artemis II mission back by about a month – after almost five years of work – NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman emphasized that the safety of the entire crew is the top priority for a successful flight.

He announced on X (formerly Twitter) on February 3rd that they won’t begin until they’re confident they’re prepared. He described it as the first step in the Artemis program, which aims to make future lunar missions frequent and cost-effective.

NASA has faced delays before. For example, astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore originally planned a week-long space mission in June 2024, but problems with their Boeing spacecraft extended their stay on the International Space Station to nine months. They finally returned home last March.

Even though things didn’t go as planned, they held onto a single hopeful thought that kept them on track.

After returning to Earth, Williams said her immediate reaction to the incident was to find a way to turn things around. She thought to herself, ‘Let’s try to make something good come out of this.’

Wilmore also echoed the sentiment. 

He admitted they were facing uncertainty. “Things might not go as planned, and we may not return in eight days,” he said. “Let’s concentrate on completing the mission.”

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2026-02-03 21:17