NASA's Artemis Rocket Re-aligns Leaks When Filling In Fuel, Is It Still Good To Launch?

NASA's SLS rocket (photo: Doc. NASA)

JAKARTA - Vehicles that will be used on a mission to the Moon by NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) again experienced a leak incident while refueling on Wednesday night September 21, it is likely that next week's launch will be postponed again.

The leak started when dangerous hydrogen fuel started coming out in the same place before, although the components were still sealed and had undergone some improvements.

Immediately the team stopped the flow and warmed the channel and resumed testing. However, the leak still occurred for a long time even though the launch team managed to reduce the leak.

After hours of adjusting and starting, NASA finally managed to load nearly 1 million gallons (4 million liters) of fuel into rockets.

The event determines whether the 322-foot or about 98-meter-high rocket is ready for its first test flight with a mannequin, not an astronaut next week.

Hydrogen leaks damaged the first two launch attempts, as well as previous calculated-down tests. So much hydrogen leaked during the preliminary count test earlier this month that it exceeded the costs set by NASA.

After the previous delay, NASA replaced two of the same seals with a small curve and a size of just one-one hundred inches.

"Now it doesn't sound much, but once again we are dealing with hydrogen, which is the smallest element on the periodic table," said mission manager Mike Sarafin.

Launching ABCNews, Thursday, September 22, in addition to changing the seal, the agency has also changed the refueling process to slower in making hydrogen and highly cold liquid oxygen.

If there are no more problems, NASA will launch a SLS rocket next week, and the rocket will be the first to orbit the Moon in 50 years.

The Artemis mission will last more than five weeks. Then, the second test flight will involve astronauts to be carried out in 2024. While the third mission is targeted for 2025, which will see a pair of astronauts actually land on the Moon.