NASA to roll back its Artemis II moon rocket for repairs

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — On Wednesday morning, NASA will begin its Artemis II moon rocket’s long march back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to begin repairs after a helium flow issue forced the cancellation of another launch attempt.

On Wednesday at around 9 a.m. ET, NASA will use a crawler transporter to move the 322-foot (98.27-meter) Space Launch System rocket and its Orion capsule companion back to the Vehicle Assembly Building, the U.S. space agency stated.

This can take up to 12 hours as it will make its approximately 4-mile journey to the Vehicle Assembly Building, as the crawler transporter will burn rubber at about 1 mile per hour or less.

The reason behind the trek is due to a helium flow issue that came up over the weekend.

“Once back in the VAB, teams will immediately begin work to install platforms to access the area of the helium flow issue. Teams also will take advantage of the time in the VAB to replace batteries in the flight termination system and retest it, and replace additional batteries in the upper stage,” NASA shared.

The Artemis II rocket has had some issues since it was first rolled to its temporary home at Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in January.

During the first wet dress rehearsal — or a prelaunch test — NASA teams filled more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic fuel into the rocket, but they discovered a liquid hydrogen leak, among other issues.

The teams replaced the seals where the leak was discovered, near the rocket’s tail service mast umbilical interface.

In the second wet dress rehearsal, the new seals worked fine and all looked good.

However, over the weekend, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced on X that a helium flow issue was discovered, and the massive moon rocket would need to be rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs.

Hurricane Ian forced NASA to roll the rocket back into the Vehicle Assembly Building during the Artemis I mission in 2022.

Originally, the Artemis II was going to be launched in February, until the leak pushed that back, and the next attempt was going to be in March.

Now, the possible next launch attempt will be in April.

When all is ready, NASA’s Cmdr. Gregory Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut mission specialist Jeremy Hansen will be launched on a flyby mission to the moon.

Artemis II possible launch dates