NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said mission managers will hold a meeting to discuss next steps and determine whether a launch on Monday or Tuesday is possible, or whether the rocket stack needs to be brought back in the vehicle assembly building.
If it reenters the building, Artemis I won’t get another launch opportunity until October, and likely mid-October because of the schedule on the launch pad, Nelson said.
Top NASA officials addressing VIPs at the Kennedy Space Center told those gathered that they believe a return of the Artemis moon rocket to the building would likely be required to fix the problem that caused the removal of the Saturday’s launch attempt, sources told CNN.
That would mean the team wouldn’t be able to attempt another launch for several weeks. It takes a minimum of three and a half days to get the rocket back into the building before they can start working on it and then pull it back up to the pad.
The agency will hold a press conference at 4:00 PM ET to share an update.
Artemis I had been scheduled to lift off Saturday afternoon, but those plans were scrapped after team members discovered a liquid hydrogen leak that they spent most of the morning trying to fix. Liquid hydrogen is one of the propellants used in the large rocket core stage. The leak prevented the launch team from refilling the liquid hydrogen tank despite trying several troubleshooting procedures.
It is the second time in a week that the space agency has been forced to stop the launch countdown due to technical problems. The first launch attempt, on Monday, was canceled after several problems arose, including with a system meant to cool the rocket’s engines before liftoff and several leaks that emerged as the rocket fueled .
The liquid hydrogen leak was detected at 7:15 a.m. ET Saturday in the quick-disconnect cavity that feeds the rocket with hydrogen in the engine section of the middle stage. It was a different leak than the one that occurred before the launch that was cleaned up on Monday.
Launch controllers heated the line in an attempt to achieve a hermetic seal, and the flow of liquid hydrogen was resumed before it leaked again. They stopped the flow of liquid hydrogen and proceeded to “close the valve used to fill and drain it, then pressurize a ground transfer line using helium to try to seal it,” according to NASA.
This troubleshooting plan was unsuccessful. The team tried the first shot again to heat the line, but the leak reoccurred after they manually restarted the flow of liquid hydrogen.
There was a 60 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for the launch, according to weather officer Melody Lovin.
The Artemis I stack, which includes the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft, remains at Launchpad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Artemis I mission is just the beginning of a program that will aim to return humans to the Moon and eventually land manned missions to Mars.
There is still a backup opportunity for the Artemis I mission to launch on September 5-6.
In recent days, the launch team has taken time to address issues such as hydrogen leaks that arose ahead of Monday’s planned launch before being cleaned up. The team has also completed a risk assessment of an engine conditioning issue and a foam crack that also emerged, according to NASA officials.
Both were considered acceptable risks heading into the launch countdown, according to Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager.
On Monday, a sensor on one of the rocket’s four RS-25 engines, identified as engine no. 3, reflected that the engine could not reach the proper temperature range required for the engine to start on takeoff.
The engines must be thermally conditioned before supercooled propellant is passed through them prior to takeoff. To prevent the engines from experiencing any temperature shock, launch controllers gradually increase the pressure of the center stage’s liquid hydrogen reservoir in the hours leading up to launch to send a small amount of liquid hydrogen to the engines. This is known as “bleeding”.
The team has since determined that it was a bad sensor that provided the reading; they plan to ignore the faulty sensor moving forward, according to John Blevins, chief engineer at Space Launch Systems.
Mission overview
Once Artemis I launches, Orion’s journey will last 37 days as it travels to the Moon, orbits it, and returns to Earth, covering a total of 1.3 million miles (2.1 million kilometers) .
While the passenger list doesn’t include any humans, it does have passengers: three dummies and a Snoopy stuffed toy will travel on Orion.
The crew aboard Artemis I may seem a bit unusual, but each one has a purpose. Snoopy will serve as a zero-gravity indicator, meaning he will begin floating inside the capsule once he reaches the space environment. The dummies, named Commander Moonikin Campos, Helga and Zohar, will measure the deep space radiation that future crews might experience and test new suit and armor technology. There is also a biology experiment that brings seeds, algae, fungi and yeast inside Orion to also measure how life reacts to this radiation. There are also additional science experiments and technology demonstrations in a ring on the rocket. From there, 10 small satellites, called CubeSats, will detach and go their separate ways to gather information about the Moon and the deep space environment. Cameras inside and outside Orion will share images and video throughout the mission, including live views of the Callisto experiment, which will capture a stream of Commander Moonikin Campos sitting in the commander’s seat. And if you have an Amazon Alexa-enabled device, you can ask it about the mission’s location each day.
Expect to see Earthrise views similar to those first shared during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, but with much better cameras and technology.
The inaugural mission of the Artemis program will begin a phase of NASA space exploration that intends to land multiple crews of astronauts in previously unexplored regions of the Moon in the Artemis II and Artemis III missions, scheduled for 2024 and 2025 respectively, and finally deliver manned missions to Mars.
CNN’s Kristin Fisher contributed to this story.