Mission Reports

NASA’s star-crossed Space Launch System moon rocket was grounded for the second time in five days Saturday, this time by a large hydrogen leak in a fuel line quick-disconnect fitting that will delay the $4.1 billion booster’s maiden flight by several weeks, likely into October.

NASA says it will carry out repairs and tests on the Artemis 1 rocket at the launch pad rather than immediately rolling back to the hangar. The agency needs the Space Force to extend the certification of flight termination batteries if it wants to make another launch attempt in September. Otherwise the rocket will have to return to the assembly building and face a lengthy delay.

The first unpiloted mission for NASA’s Artemis lunar program aims to prove out the most powerful rocket to ever launch from U.S. soil, and test the function of a human-rated spacecraft traveling more than 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the moon before blazing back through Earth’s atmosphere at nearly 25,000 mph.

Italian engineers are expecting a series of spectacular photos from a tiny satellite that will be released to fly in sync with the interim cryogenic propulsion stage that propels the Orion capsule and European Service Module to the moon from Earth orbit.

Catching a ride on Artemis 1 is a miniaturized CubeSat called NEA Scout that will use a thin, aluminum-coated solar sail about the size of a tennis court to propel it towards the smallest asteroid ever to be studied by a spacecraft.