NASA Delays Artemis II To March (nasa.gov)
- Reference: 0180727112
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/02/03/1931235/nasa-delays-artemis-ii-to-march
- Source link: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/02/03/nasa-conducts-artemis-ii-fuel-test-eyes-march-for-launch-opportunity/
> NASA has [2]delayed the Artemis II launch to March of this year, after a wet dress-rehearsal uncovered a hydrogen leak. From the NASA article:
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> During tanking, engineers spent several hours troubleshooting a liquid hydrogen leak in an interface used to route the cryogenic propellant into the rocket's core stage, putting them behind in the countdown. Attempts to resolve the issue involved stopping the flow of liquid hydrogen into the core stage, allowing the interface to warm up for the seals to reseat, and adjusting the flow of the propellant.
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> Teams successfully filled all tanks in both the core stage and interim cryogenic propulsion stage before a team of five was sent to the launch pad to finish Orion closeout operations. Engineers conducted a first run at terminal countdown operations during the test, counting down to approximately 5 minutes left in the countdown, before the ground launch sequencer automatically stopped the countdown due to a spike in the liquid hydrogen leak rate.
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[1] https://slashdot.org/~ClickOnThis
[2] https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/02/03/nasa-conducts-artemis-ii-fuel-test-eyes-march-for-launch-opportunity/
Deja Vu? (Score:4, Informative)
Freezing temperatures in Florida. Leaking o-rings. Fuel leak.
Why do I have this sense of deja vu?
For the record, I fully expected the launch to be delayed. just Artemis things.
Re: (Score:2)
> Freezing temperatures in Florida. Leaking o-rings. Fuel leak.
> Why do I have this sense of deja vu?
Yeah, deja view all over again. I saw an article yesterday from a fluff site saying something like "NASA picked the worst week to fly Artemis", and I immediately thought about temps and polar vortices. Not at all. They went on about how the Olympics are starting, Superbowl is Sunday, and Artemis is going to be knocked out of the news/viewing cycle. I thought, "That's it? That's all?".
My last thought leaving the article was wondering if that was a valid conclusion. Tagging in with the world's biggest TV show
but which (Score:2)
decade?
Space is hard. Very hard. (Score:2)
With 2026 technology space remains a hazardous, expensive, risky proposition. Which implies that space tourism will remain a very small niche for a long time. Hotels in orbit? Not any time soon.
Re: (Score:3)
Space is hard, but not hard enough for NASA.
That's why we deliberately choose hydrogen, one of the most difficult to handle substances we can come up with in order to power our big ass rocket.
And in order to increase the difficulty yet again we choose to use politically picked contractors who are not really competent to do the job in order to build our big ass rocket.
Completely Predictable (Score:1)
There's always at least 1 hydrogen valve issue. Perhaps they should redesign their valves?
Re: (Score:2)
It's also a microcosm of the Challenger disaster o-ring failure. :(
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> There's always at least 1 hydrogen valve issue. Perhaps they should redesign their valves?
There's always at least 1 hydrogen leak issue. Perhaps they should redesign their rocket.
Valves, connectors, o-rings shrinking from cold temperatures, loose pins blowing out at high speed causing tiny nicks in tubing that hydrogen leaks through very easily... these are just a few of the many ways hydrogen can go wrong.
Hydrogen is not the answer. Hydrogen is the question. "H*ll, no" is the answer. In any sane universe, it's far better to have to lift 80% more fuel for your upper stages than to keep cance
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
> In any sane universe, it's far better to have to lift 80% more fuel for your upper stages than to keep canceling or delaying launches for months at a time to avoid blowing up...
That depends entirely on your goal, so a judgement of sanity isn't really on point.
One could also argue that, in a sane universe, it's far worse to have to lift 80% more fuel for your upper stages (and not to mention the required additional fuel on the lower stages to life the extra fuel for your upper stages) than to delay a launch. Hell, one could argue it's fucking absurd, unless one also gets super excited about it taking a month of orbital refueling to get your rocket.... well, fucking anywhere.
Rea
Re: (Score:3)
Part of the reason (not all) that Starship will require so much fuel is because of its size and payload capability, which is FAR greater than any other design has proposed thus far. That's not to say that Hydrogen isn't a more efficient fuel relative to methane. It is, 2x-3x more energy efficient by weight, but not necessarily by Volume which also matters.
I only say this because the details matter. It's not as if swapping Methane for Hydrogen lends itself to an Apples-to-Apples comparison. It's more com
Re: (Score:2)
> Part of the reason (not all) that Starship will require so much fuel is because of its size and payload capability
I'd say more so it's construction from steel. Size doesn't really play a large role, and empty space is quite cheap to launch.
> I only say this because the details matter. It's not as if swapping Methane for Hydrogen lends itself to an Apples-to-Apples comparison. It's more complicated than that.
Absolutely- it's not apples-to-apples.
However, the efficiency increase would be enough to turn an Earth-to-Moon Starship mission from "Every trip is an appreciable fraction of the logistical difficulty of building the fucking ISS" to, "alright- that's not bad."
And this is ignoring that both things parent mentioned had nothing to do with hydrogen, anyway.
Musk uses methane because
Re: (Score:3)
> One could also argue that, in a sane universe, it's far worse to have to lift 80% more fuel for your upper stages (and not to mention the required additional fuel on the lower stages to life the extra fuel for your upper stages) than to delay a launch. Hell, one could argue it's fucking absurd, unless one also gets super excited about it taking a month of orbital refueling to get your rocket.... well, fucking anywhere.
A 1.8x increase in fuel consumption is not going to make it take a month unless it was already going to take 18 days with hydrogen. We're not talking about orders of magnitude here. We're talking about a relatively small difference in the amount of energy per unit of mass. And in exchange for that relatively small reduction in payload capacity, launches have to endure constant failures that more traditional launch systems don't.
Even ignoring the risk of embrittlement causing an in-space disaster, I'm pre
Re: (Score:1)
> A 1.8x increase in fuel consumption is not going to make it take a month unless it was already going to take 18 days with hydrogen. We're not talking about orders of magnitude here. We're talking about a relatively small difference in the amount of energy per unit of mass. And in exchange for that relatively small reduction in payload capacity, launches have to endure constant failures that more traditional launch systems don't.
No- it's a matter of having to refuel, and not.
If you can use non-hydrogen to complete your mission without refuelling, then you're fine and dandy.
If not, you're looking at a Starship-style dumbfuckery.
> A human-rated Starship is exactly what they're planning to land on the moon. And it uses methane. And yes, they're planning to use multiple refueling launches to get it into the correct orbit.
That Starship will be in orbit around the moon, and placed there without any humans in it.
In no universe are they launching humans from the Earth in a Starship, and sending them to the moon. The amount of fuel it would take is fucking clown shoes.
I.e., it's a very expensive elevator.
Re: (Score:2)
And it will take ~20 launches to get that nearly empty Starship HLS to lunar orbit, because a freshly-launched Starship can get exactly 0kg of mass to TLI, even with zero payload.
It will have enough fuel left over after this to do exactly one landing and launch off of the lunary surface, back to LLO . The crew will then be taking Orion back.
It is seriously comically stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
The Starship's payload is a problem they are actively working on. The original goal was 200 tons to LEO, but the Starship v2 was only theoretically capable of ~30 tons (v2 will never actually go into orbit anyways). The v2 that has flown to-date did not have a workable payload for the size of the vehicle. The problem is/was dry mass being too high. Supposedly v3 (set to launch next month) can do 100 tons and v4 (which does not yet exist) sets the original target of 200 tons. Whether they have achieved even
Re:Completely Predictable (Score:4, Informative)
Challenger was a problem with a solid fuel booster. No hydrogen involved. Columbia was an issue with ice, which would be a problem for any cryogenic fuel... basically anything other than solid fuel.