NASA fuels moon rocket in crucial test to decide when Artemis astronauts will launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — NASA fueled its new moon rocket in a final, decisive test Monday, hoping to send astronauts on a lunar flyby as early as next weekend.

The launch team began loading the 98-meter (322-foot) rocket with very cold hydrogen and oxygen at the Kennedy Space Center late at noon. More than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) must have flowed into the tanks and remained on board for several hours, mimicking the final stages of a real countdown.

The only thing missing from the critical dress rehearsal was the crew. The three Americans and one Canadian monitored the action nearly 1,000 miles away in Houston, home of the Johnson Space Center. They have been in quarantine for a week and a half, awaiting the result of the training countdown.

This all-day operation will determine when they can take off on a crew’s first lunar trip in more than half a century.

Two days late due to a bitter cold snap, NASA set its countdown to stop half a minute short of reaching zero, just before the engine ignited. The clocks began ticking Saturday evening, giving launch controllers the chance to make all the moves and resolve lingering issues with the Space Launch System rocket. Hydrogen leaks kept the first SLS rocket on the pad for months into 2022. Launch officials said they were confident the problems were behind them.

If the refueling demonstration goes well, NASA could launch Commander Reid Wiseman and his crew to the Moon as early as Sunday. The rocket must fly by February 11, otherwise the mission will be canceled until March. The space agency only has a few days in any given month to launch the rocket, and extreme cold has already shortened the February launch window by two days.

The nearly 10-day mission will send astronauts beyond the Moon, around the mysterious far side, and then directly to Earth, with the aim of testing the capsule’s life support system and other vital systems. The crew will not enter lunar orbit or attempt to land.

NASA last sent astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s, as part of the Apollo program. The new Artemis program aims for a more sustained lunar presence, with Wiseman’s crew setting the stage for future moon landings by other astronauts.

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