Four Astronauts, One Giant Test: What’s at Stake for NASA’s Artemis II Moon Mission

Repairs underway on Artemis II rocket after hydrogen leak during fueling test

Technicians at Kennedy Space Center are working to resolve a liquid hydrogen leak discovered during a recent fueling test for NASA’s Artemis II mission.

Four Astronauts, One Giant Test: What’s at Stake for NASA’s Artemis II Moon Mission

The last time the U.S. sent astronauts to the Moon was Apollo 17 in 1972. More than half a century later, NASA is preparing to do it again. Artemis II, the agency’s first crewed mission of the Artemis era, will send four astronauts on a 10-day loop around the Moon to demonstrate that its new rocket and crew capsule can carry people to lunar distance and return them safely to Earth. NASA had been targeting an early-February launch, but after a li…

Hydrogen leak delays Artemis II; repeated technical failures put Moon mission under scrutiny

NASA's Artemis II moon mission has been delayed again after recurring liquid hydrogen leaks during a critical rehearsal test forced engineers to abandon preparations at Kennedy Space Centre, pushing the historic crewed lunar flight from 8 February 2026 to March. The setback emerged during a 'wet dress rehearsal' when fuel began escaping from the rocket over two days, prompting repeated shutdowns and restarts before teams scrapped the test altoge…

NASA's Artemis II Keeps Leaking Liquid Hydrogen, And It's Starting To Cause Problems

Artemis II was set to launch in February, but a leaky situation has caused a delay. Find out about the challenges NASA is facing with this moon mission.

The Rarity of First Flights: From Test Pilots to Artemis II

By Burt Dicht NSS Managing Director of Membership Early in my career as an aerospace engineer at Northrop, I had the rare opportunity to be directly involved in two first flights: the F-5G / F-20A Tigershark and the YF-23A Advanced Tactical Fighter. These were not incremental upgrades or routine test sorties. In one case, an...