Nasa aborts second attempt to launch 'world's most powerful rocket' after hydrogen leak

3 September 2022, 16:25 | Updated: 3 September 2022, 16:51

Nasa has called off its second attempt to launch its Artemis 1 rocket after a leak developed in the hydrogen tank.

Engineers recommended the launch director the planned lift-off should not go ahead on Saturday.

The giant rocket, which was initially planned to launch earlier this week, was scrubbed following a hydrogen leak.

In a statement, Nasa said: "The #Artemis I mission to the Moon has been postponed. Teams attempted to fix an issue related to a leak in the hardware transferring fuel into the rocket, but were unsuccessful. Join NASA leaders later today for a news conference."

Read more: Artemis 1 launch cancelled: NASA halts 'world's most powerful rocket' after hydrogen leak

The rocket was due to take off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The first attempt earlier in the week was also marred by escaping hydrogen, but those leaks were elsewhere on the 322ft (98-metre) rocket, the most powerful ever built by Nasa.

Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson and her team tried to plug Saturday's leak the way they did the last time: stopping and restarting the flow of super-cold liquid hydrogen in hopes of removing the gap around a seal in the supply line.

They attempted this twice, and also flushed helium through the line. But the leak persisted.

Ms Blackwell-Thompson finally halted the countdown after three to four hours of effort.

Similar leaks hindered NASA's countdown tests in April and June.

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Earlier this week, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said rocket launch delays are "just part of the space business".

Speaking on NASA's official channel, Mr Nelson said: "We don't launch until it's right, and in fact they've got a problem with the gases going on the engine bleed on one engine.

"I think it's just illustrative that this is a very complicated machine, a very complicated system, and all those things have to work, and you don't want to light the candle until it's ready to go.

"I have some personal experience in the crew that I participated in the 24th flight of the space shuttle, we scrubbed four times, and the fifth try was a flawless mission.

"We know had we launched on any one of those scrubs, it wouldn't have been a good day.

"This is just part of the space business and it's part of particularly a test flight, we are stressing and testing this rocket and a space craft in a way that you would never do it with a human crew on board, that's the purpose of a test flight."

The Artemis 1 mission will see the first launch of the new 322ft (98m) tall Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which the agency says is the world's most powerful rocket to date.

It will take the Orion capsule, powered by the Airbus-built European Service Module (ESM), into the Moon's orbit.

The uncrewed flight marks the next chapter in putting humans back on the Moon, and is the first in NASA's Artemis programme.