Nasa has postponed its historic Artemis II mission to send astronauts around the moon, following issues during a critical test of its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The US space agency had planned to launch as early as next week from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but announced overnight that the mission would be delayed until March, without specifying a date.
During a two-day 'wet dress rehearsal' on Tuesday, engineers detected leaking hydrogen from the SLS and encountered a problem with a valve on the Orion capsule, where four astronauts will live during the 10-day mission. Nasa stated that teams would fully review data from the test of the 98-metre-tall rocket.
The delay is a setback for the crew, who have been in quarantine for nearly two weeks to prevent illness. The mission will see Christina Koch become the first woman and Victor Glover the first person of colour to travel beyond low Earth orbit. It will be the first crewed flight of the SLS after the uncrewed Artemis I in 2022, which also faced hydrogen leak issues.
Artemis II will take astronauts on a 685,000-mile round trip around the moon, the first such journey since Apollo 17 in 1972. The crew includes commander Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who would become the first non-US astronaut to travel beyond low Earth orbit. Nasa said the crew would re-enter quarantine about two weeks before the next launch window, which runs from February to the end of April.
