NASA announced early Tuesday that it is pushing back the launch of Artemis II, the first crewed mission to the Moon in over 50 years, from its February window to March following complications during a critical fuel test. The decision ends what would have been humanity's first crewed lunar voyage since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
The space agency encountered problems during a wet dress rehearsal test at Kennedy Space Center, where engineers spent several hours troubleshooting a liquid hydrogen leak in an interface used to route the cryogenic propellant into the rocket's core stage. Cold temperatures also caused a late start to tanking operations, as it took time to bring some interfaces to acceptable temperatures before propellant loading could begin.
As a result of the incomplete wet dress rehearsal, NASA has decided to forgo a launch attempt during the mission's first window of February 8-11 and is now targeting March for the historic flight. The four astronauts who had entered quarantine on January 21 in Houston will be released and will not travel to Kennedy Space Center as tentatively planned. The crew will enter quarantine again approximately two weeks before the next targeted launch opportunity.
Artemis II will carry four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the Moon: commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Christina Koch, all from NASA, along with mission specialist Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency. The mission will make history in multiple ways, as Glover, Koch, and Hansen are planned to be the first person of color, woman, and non-US citizen respectively to travel beyond low Earth orbit.
The mission's free-return trajectory will take the crew farther from Earth than any human has ever traveled, surpassing the Apollo 13 record of 248,655 miles set in 1970. The journey to the Moon is expected to last three days, after which astronauts will spend one day in lunar observation on the far side of the Moon, a region that cannot be seen from Earth by any observer.
The delay represents a setback for NASA's ambitious Artemis program, which aims to establish a sustainable human presence on and around the Moon while preparing for eventual crewed missions to Mars. The program has already faced multiple delays and cost overruns, with the total program cost now exceeding $93 billion.
Despite the setback, NASA officials emphasized that safety remains the paramount concern and that the additional time will allow engineers to fully resolve the hydrogen leak issue. The space agency stated it will announce a more specific launch date once the next launch window is confirmed.
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