NASA engineers worked for more than an hour while trying to fix the problem. The attempt was called a scrub. The Artemis team suggested at a press conference that the engine issue may have been a sign of a faulty temperature sensor. The SLS program manager said that the way the sensor is acting doesn't line up with the physics of the situation.
The launch was pushed back to this weekend so that the procedures could start again on Saturday. The start of the chill-down process, including the kickstart test, was 45 minutes earlier than planned. Despite a few intermittent rain showers, the weather was good enough for the launch. They filled the big orange fuel tank with more than one million gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
The hydrogen leak happened after the oxygen had been mostly fueled up. Jim Free, associate administrator at NASA headquarters, said that hydrogen is difficult to work with. A fitting used for the liquid hydrogen supply line from the ground system is believed to be the source of the leak. The fitting had to be removed and replaced. The launch attempt was scrubbed at 11:17 am.
Even when the weather cooperates, such delays aren't out of the ordinary. Some successful launches had to be delayed multiple times. The task gets even more difficult with the new rocket. Sarafin said at a press conference on September 1 that NASA has over 500 criteria that need to be met before they can be used for a launch.
It is possible that NASA will need to delay the Artemis launch until mid-October in order to get ready for the Crew-5 launch. The International Space Station will be visited by two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut. It will be the first time a Russian will fly on a US-made spaceship since the conflict in Ukraine.
Repairs can be made on the launch pad, or the rocket must be rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Sarafin said that keeping the rocket on the pad exposes it to environmental risks but that the quick connect seal can't be tested inside the building.
The motion of the rocket can cause stress on it. The rocket would travel no faster than 1 mile per hour on a machine called the crawler. It is possible that a delay until late October could pose risks for the small craft that are intended for their own missions. Some of the CubeSats can be charged, but others can't. Sarafin said at the press conference that they could top off the batteries for more than one vehicle. It is part of the process of figuring out a launch period.
Nelson said that today's pushback is not expected to affect the overall timetable for the program, which aims to send astronauts into lunar orbit aboard Artemis 2 in 2024 and to land them on the moon aboard Artemis 3 in 2025. According to a March assessment by the NASA inspector general, there is a chance that the moon landing mission could slip to 2026.
NASA officials said that the rocket is in good shape, and that they are confident that they will be able to launch safely in the future. The vehicle is safe and we are not where we want to be.
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