Skip to main content

NASA won’t try testing its Space Launch System rocket again until June

NASA will attempt another test of its new Space Launch System rocket next month, officials from the agency confirmed this week. After three failed attempts to perform a wet dress rehearsal, in which the rocket is brought out to the launch pad and is filled with fuel, the rocket will remain in its storage building until early to mid June.

Technicians will keep working on the problems uncovered in the previous wet dress rehearsals, the first of which was conducted on Sunday, April 3, while the rocket remains in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center. As reported by SpaceNews, NASA officials said in a teleconference that they had made progress in fixing two of the issues which had arisen during the tests, including replacing a helium check value that had become stuck open during the second test on April 4.

Recommended Videos

NASA said that the value had been stuck open due to a small piece of rubber in it which stopped it from closing, and they were still investigating where the rubber had come from.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Another issue was a leak of the liquid hydrogen fuel used to power the rocket, which forced the third attempt at the wet dress rehearsal to be called off on April 16. The likely cause of this leak was found to be loose bolts on a gasket, and these had since been tightened up. Cliff Lanham, senior vehicle operations manager for NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program, said they think this should fix the leak issue but they won’t know for sure until they try running fuel through the lines once again.

NASA will try to perform the wet dress rehearsal for a fourth time in either early June or mid June, officials said. But they also warned that one more rehearsal may be necessary after this one, to get the rocket ready for its first orbital launch.

The rocket had been tentatively scheduled for launch as part of the Artemis I mission in June this year, but this will now be pushed back to August at the earliest.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Crew-8 launches with small crack in capsule, but SpaceX says it’s safe
SpaceX Crew-8 launches to the space station in March 2024.

SpaceX successfully launched its Crew-8 members to the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday night.

The Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, and Jeanette Epps, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, blasted away from a Cape Canaveral launchpad in Florida just before 11 p.m. ET.

Read more
NASA switches SpaceX’s Crew-8 launch date again
SpaceX Crew-8 ahead of their flight to the space station.

Just a couple of days after NASA announced it was delaying the launch of SpaceX’s Crew-8 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by a week, the agency has come back to say it’s pushing back the earliest possible launch date by another two days.

It means the Crew-8 mission will launch no earlier than Friday, March 1.

Read more
Watch Sierra Space blow up its LIFE habitat in dramatic pressure test
sierra space blows up life habitat in pressure test

The moment that Sierra Space's LIFE module explodes. Sierra Space

With the aging International Space Station (ISS) facing a fiery end about seven years from now, attention has been turning to new designs to replace the orbital outpost.

Read more