{"id":493531,"date":"2026-02-23T06:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T06:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/493531\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T06:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T06:15:13","slug":"nasas-giant-moon-rocket-has-a-new-problem-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/493531\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA’s Giant Moon Rocket Has a New Problem : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2013 Grounded until at least April, NASA’s giant Moon rocket<\/a> is headed back to the hangar this week for more repairs before astronauts climb aboard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The space agency said Sunday it’s targeting Tuesday for the slow, 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) trek across Kennedy Space Center, weather permitting.<\/p>\n

NASA had barely finished a repeat fueling test<\/a> Thursday, to ensure dangerous hydrogen fuel leaks were plugged, when another problem cropped up.<\/p>\n

\"ANASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, left, walking at the Kennedy Space Center launch pad on Saturday, 21 February. (NASA via AP)<\/p>\n

This time, the rocket’s helium system malfunctioned, further delaying astronauts’ first trip to the Moon<\/a> in more than half a century.<\/p>\n

Engineers had just tamed the hydrogen leaks and settled on a March 6 launch date<\/a> \u2013 already a month late \u2013 when the helium issue arose.<\/p>\n

The helium flow to the rocket’s upper stage was disrupted; helium is needed to purge the engines and pressurize the fuel tanks.<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

“Returning to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy is required to determine the cause of the issue and fix it,” NASA said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NASA said the quick rollback preps preserve an April launch attempt, but stressed that it will depend on how the repairs go.<\/p>\n

The space agency has only a handful of days in any given month to launch the crew of four around the Moon and back.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube frameborder=”0\u2033 allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen><\/p>\n

The three Americans and one Canadian assigned to the Artemis II mission remain on standby in Houston.<\/p>\n

Related: NASA Plans to Put a Nuclear Reactor on The Moon. Here’s Why.<\/a><\/p>\n

They will become the first people to fly to the Moon since NASA’s Apollo program, which sent 24 astronauts there from 1968 through 1972.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2013 Grounded until at least April, NASA’s giant Moon rocket is headed back to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-493531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}