After all, NASA won’t be launching its Artemis 2 moon mission until just a few weeks from now.
On Saturday morning (February 21) the agency announced that it had discovered a problem Artemis 2Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, located on Pad 39B Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
After overnight data showed a blockage of helium flow to the SLS interim cryogenic propulsion stage, teams are troubleshooting and preparing for a possible rollback to Artemis II’s VAB at @NASAKennedy. This will almost certainly have an impact on the March launch window. @NASA will do…21 February 2026
“It will almost certainly impact march launch window“Isaacman said.
That window is relatively small. It runs from March 6 to March 9, with another opportunity on March 11. If Artemis 2 doesn’t meet either of those dates, NASA will have to wait at least three additional weeks: The next window includes target launch dates of April 1, April 3-6, and April 30.
Saturday’s news was somewhat surprising. This comes just a day after NASA announced its Target on 6th March for the launch of Artemis 2, the first manned mission beyond low earth orbit since the end of Apollo Era. Artemis 2 will send three NASA astronauts and a Canadian on a journey of about 10 days Moon And back to Earth in the Orion capsule.
The agency made the call March 6 after reviewing data from Artemis 2’s second wet dress rehearsal (WDR), a two-day practice of major operations before launch.
The WDR ended on Thursday (19 February) with the successful refueling of both SLS stages. This was a major milestone for the Artemis 2 team, which had to finish the mission’s first WDR as early as February 2. liquid hydrogen leak (LH2) Propellant.
LH2 leak problem has occurred Artemis 1Launch of ultimately successful unmanned Moon mission delayed many times Back in 2022. But NASA seems to have now got this issue under control.
During a press conference Friday, Artemis 2 team members said there were just a few big boxes left to check before the mission was given the green light to launch.
There was completion of a flight readiness review, which was expected to occur later this coming week. The second was the installation of two “incidental pad access” trusses on SLS’s mobile launch tower, which would allow teams to test Artemis 2’s flight termination system on the pad.
Those trusses were installed Friday, NASA officials wrote in a blog post On Saturday. But possibly they will be removed soon.
“Teams are actively reviewing the data, and taking steps to enable rollback positions for NASA to resolve the problem as quickly as possible while engineers determine the best path forward,” officials wrote in the update.
“To protect troubleshooting options at both Pad B and VAB, teams are preparing to remove the pad access platforms installed yesterday, which have wind-driven barriers and cannot be removed during the high winds that are forecast for tomorrow,” he said.
