NASA's plans to launch the Artemis II into lunar orbit may get delayed again. The first moon mission involving humans since 1972 was set to go March 6th, after a dress rehearsal found no hydrogen leaks. But NASA boss Jared Isaacman said on X Saturday, an interruption in helium flow was discovered overnight. He says that will likely send the Artemis off the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center and back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs. The super rocket that will carry the astronauts has its roots at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.
The Artemis mission's new super rocket known as the Space Launch System, or SLS, which was designed, built, tested, and managed at Marshall. The new vehicle can trace its lineage to NASA’s retired Space Shuttle. SLS uses modified RS-25 engines and twin solid rocket boosters, which previously powered the earlier space plane. The orange colored main stage of the SLS is the descendant of the shuttle’s external tank, which provided the “spine” of the spacecraft during blastoff.
Artemis-2 is meant to be the first crewed mission to the moon since astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt left their boot prints in the Taurus-Littrow valley on the lunar surface in 1972. That earlier flight was Apollo 17, and Schmitt was among the NASA veterans the Artemis crew members said inspired them. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Cristina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen of Canada are to visit the moon during the upcoming mission.
Wiseman admitted during a press conference during the rollout of the Artemis-2 rocket to the launch pad, that he almost didn't take a phone call from Apollo veteran Tom Stafford after he was and his crew mates were announced as the Artemis-2 prime crew.
“I didn't have the number saved. It was a Florida number, and I was thinking it was a telemarketer,” Wiseman recalled. “I was on my couch. I was getting ready to take a nap. It had been a long day with the media, and I almost hit the red hang up button, but I just figured I would answer it. I answer it. It was General Stafford, who said, ‘Congratulations. We are so excited.’”
Tom Stafford commanded the Apollo 10 mission, which was the dress rehearsal for Apollo 11, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin actually landed on the moon. Staffard and Lunar Module Pilot Gene Cernan came close to landing but pulled away to test an abort mode that the Apollo 11 crew might have needed if something went wrong on their flight. Cernan would later command Apollo 17 in 1972, making him the last man to stand on the moon.
