The agency plans to load more than 700,000 gallons (2.65 million liters) of liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) into Artemis 2's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on Thursday (Feb. 19), wrapping up a crucial two-day-long test called a wet dress rehearsal.
This will be the second wet dress for Artemis 2, the first crewed moon mission since the Apollo era. The first rehearsal, which began on Jan. 31, ended prematurely due to an LH2 leak detected during propellant loading.
The LH2 leak occurred at an interface with the tail service mast umbilical (TSMU), a service line that connects the SLS with its mobile launch tower.
This was far from unprecedented. Artemis 1's test campaign was plagued by leaks in this area as well, which helped push the uncrewed mission's launch from spring 2022 to November of that year. All ended well, however: Artemis 1 successfully sent an Orion capsule to lunar orbit and back to Earth.
Artemis 2 teams replaced two seals in the aftermath of the first wet dress. Then, on Feb. 12, they partially filled SLS' tanks with LH2 in a "confidence test" designed to assess the efficacy of that fix. A problem with ground support equipment restricted the flow of LH2 during that test, but the team nonetheless was "able to gain confidence in several key objectives," NASA wrote in an update on Feb. 13.
Artemis 2 team members soon tied the ground-support issue to a filter, which they replaced over this past weekend. They now feel ready to conduct another wet dress rehearsal, which will run through the key operations leading up to launch.
Source: www.space.com
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