NASA Postpones Wet-dress Drills, Rockets To The Moon Continue To Experience Problems

NASA has again postponed tests for its Artemis I mission to the Moon. (photo: doc. NASA)

JAKARTA - NASA has again postponed trials for its Artemis I mission to the Moon, this time involving a rocket's wet dress exercise last weekend.

NASA has planned to begin the so-called wet dress exercise, namely rocket refueling exercises and other important Artemis I pre-launch activities on April 9 at Pad 39B Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, United States (US).

However, the mission team decided to modify the test procedure after noticing a problem with the helium check valve, which prevented gas from escaping from the massive Artemis I Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

Helium is used to clean engine lines before loading and drying the propellant. This modified wet dress exercise will focus solely on core stage tanking, SLS, and minimal propellant operations at the ground system interim cryogenic propulsion (ICPS) stage at Kennedy. ICPS is the upper stage of the two-stage SLS.

"Due to changes in loading procedures required for the modified test, wet dress practice testing is scheduled to continue with calls to the station on Tuesday, April 12 and tanking on Thursday, April 14," NASA said in a statement.

If the test is successful this week, NASA could finally move forward with Artemis I. The mission will send the unmanned Orion capsule on a flight around the Moon designed to study how travel will affect human astronauts.

Even so, NASA hasn't divulged a date for the mission until it completes wet-dress drills, but could take off as early as this June.

For information, this is not the first time the rehearsal for Artemis I has been postponed. Previously, a test that took place on April 1, and the mission team hopes to complete about 48 hours later, on April 3 had several problems crop up, including a fault with the fan system in the SLS large mobile launch tower and a pressure jam, eliminating ventilation valves on the structure.

In the end, the test was postponed, then pushed back from schedule because the Artemis I team was accommodating the launch of the Ax-1 Axiom Space mission to the International Space Station (ISS).