‘Rare arctic outbreak’ causes NASA to delay Artemis II fueling test

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — The “rare arctic” chill that has been sweeping Florida has caused NASA to push back its wet dress rehearsal of the Artemis II moon rocket, the U.S. space agency stated on Friday morning.

“Over the past several days, engineers have been closely monitoring conditions as cold weather and winds move through Florida. Managers have assessed hardware capabilities against the projected forecast given the rare arctic outbreak affecting the state and decided to change the timeline. Teams and preparations at the launch pad remain ready for the wet dress rehearsal,” NASA stated.

This means that the original wet dress rehearsal has been changed from Saturday, Jan. 31, to Monday, Feb. 2.

This also means that the earliest launch date to send four humans to the moon will not be Friday, Feb. 6, but now no earlier than Sunday, Feb. 8.

Scroll down to see the launch attempt dates for Artemis II.

However, the new launch date is tentative and based on how the wet dress rehearsal turns out. The rehearsal is to test the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion capsule.

The U.S. space agency explained what the testing of the Artemis II rocket will be like.

“The upcoming wet dress rehearsal is a prelaunch test to fuel the rocket. During the rehearsal, teams demonstrate the ability to load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellants into the rocket, conduct a launch countdown, and practice safely removing propellant from the rocket without astronauts inside the spacecraft,” stated NASA.

Once the test is complete and if all goes well (include Mother Nature playing nice), then the Artemis II will see four people — NASA’s Cmdr. Gregory Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut mission specialist Jeremy Hansen — go to the moon for a flyby mission.

The quartet has been in quarantine in Houston since Friday, Jan. 23, 2026.