Moving off a February launch window also means the Artemis II astronauts will be released from quarantine, which they entered in Houston on Jan. 21. As a result, they will not travel to NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida Tuesday as tentatively planned. Crew will enter quarantine again about two weeks out from the next targeted launch opportunity.<\/p>\n
NASA began the\u202fapproximately 49-hour\u202fcountdown at 8:13 p.m.\u202fEST on\u202fJan. 31. Leading\u202fup to,\u202fand throughout\u202ftanking\u202foperations on Feb. 2, engineers monitored how\u202fcold weather\u202fat Kennedy impacted systems and put procedures in place to keep hardware safe.\u202fCold\u202ftemperatures caused a late start to tanking operations, as it took time to bring\u202fsome\u202finterfaces to acceptable temperatures\u202fbefore\u202fpropellant loading\u202foperations\u202fbegan.\u202f\u202f<\/p>\n
During\u202ftanking, engineers spent several hours troubleshooting a liquid hydrogen leak in\u202fan\u202finterface used to route the cryogenic propellant into\u202fthe\u202frocket\u2019s core stage,\u202fputting\u202fthem behind in the countdown.\u202fAttempts to resolve the issue\u202finvolved stopping the flow of liquid hydrogen into the core stage, allowing the interface to warm up\u202ffor the\u202fseals to\u202freseat, and adjusting the flow of the propellant.\u202f<\/p>\n
Teams successfully filled all tanks in\u202fboth the core stage\u202fand\u202finterim cryogenic propulsion stage\u202fbefore a\u202fteam of five\u202fwas sent to the launch pad\u202fto finish\u202fOrion closeout operations.\u202fEngineers conducted a first run at terminal countdown operations during the test, counting down to approximately 5 minutes left in the countdown, before the ground launch sequencer automatically stopped the countdown due to a spike in the liquid hydrogen leak rate.<\/p>\n
In addition to the liquid hydrogen leak, a valve associated with Orion crew module hatch pressurization, which recently was replaced, required retorquing, and closeout operations took longer than planned. Cold weather that affected several cameras and other equipment didn\u2019t impede wet dress rehearsal activities, but would have required additional attention on launch day. Finally, engineers have been troubleshooting dropouts of audio communication channels across ground teams in the past few weeks leading up to the test. Several dropouts reoccurred during the wet dress rehearsal.\u202f<\/p>\n
The team carried out updated procedures to purge the Orion service module\u2019s cavities with breathing air during closeout crew operations rather than gaseous nitrogen to ensure the team assisting the crew into their seats and closing Orion\u2019s hatches can safely operate in the White Room.<\/p>\n
With March as the potential launch window, teams will fully review data from the test, mitigate each issue, and return to testing ahead of setting an official target launch date.<\/p>\n
Crew safety will remain the highest priority, ensuring NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, return home at the end of their mission.<\/p>\n
In addition to a statement from NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman released Tuesday, agency leaders will discuss initial results from the wet dress rehearsal during a news conference at 1 p.m. on Tuesday. Previously, NASA was targeting the news conference to begin at 12 p.m. The agency will stream the news conference live on its YouTube<\/a>\u00a0 channel.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u202f\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n February 3, 2026<\/p>\n More from Missions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA concluded a wet dress rehearsal for the agency\u2019s Artemis II test flight early Tuesday morning, successfully loading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[6353,6552,20920,85,46,6355,9142,141,145,9143],"class_list":{"0":"post-271520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-artemis","9":"tag-artemis-2","10":"tag-exploration-ground-systems","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-kennedy-space-center","14":"tag-orion-multi-purpose-crew-vehicle","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-space","17":"tag-space-launch-system-sls"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/a40374774f6a4bb971a212b8a42695ffdb1de218314ffaab4009d96a833f9f48.png\"\/)
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