By MARCIA DUNN
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s massive moon rocket, which will remain on the ground until at least April, will return to the hangar this week for more repairs before astronauts climb aboard.
The US space agency said Sunday it plans to make a slow 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) trek through the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, weather permitting.
NASA had barely finished a new fuel loading test on Thursday to make sure dangerous hydrogen fuel leaks were fixed when another problem arose.
This time, the rocket’s helium system failed, further delaying the first trip by astronauts to the moon in more than half a century.
Engineers had just checked for a hydrogen leak and had set a launch date of March 6 – already a month late – when a helium problem arose. The flow of helium to the rocket’s upper stage was interrupted; Helium is needed to pump engines and create pressure in fuel tanks.
“It is necessary to return to the vehicle assembly facility at Kennedy to determine the cause of the problem and resolve it,” NASA said in a statement.
NASA said a quick return to the staging pad helps keep the launch attempt alive in April, but stressed that will depend on how repairs go. The space agency has just a few days a month to launch a four-person crew around the moon and back.
Three Americans and one Canadian assigned to the Artemis II mission remain on standby in Houston. They will be the first humans to go to the moon since NASA’s Apollo program, which sent 24 astronauts there between 1968 and 1972.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor using a generative artificial intelligence tool.
