Launch scrubbed after fuel leak on new moon rocket

CAPE CANAVERAL — NASA’s new moon rocket sprang another dangerous fuel leak Saturday, forcing launch controllers to call off their second attempt to send a crew capsule into lunar orbit with test dummies.

The first attempt earlier last week was also marred by escaping hydrogen, but those leaks were elsewhere on the 322-foot rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA.

After Tuesday, a two-week launch blackout period begins, and NASA managers estimated repair work would take at least several weeks.

“We’ll go when it’s ready. We don’t go until then and especially now on a test flight, because we’re going to stress this and test it ... and make sure it’s right before we put four humans up on the top of it,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

NASA wants to send the crew capsule atop the rocket around the moon, pushing it to the limit before astronauts get on the next flight. If the fiveweek demo with test dummies succeeds, astronauts could fly around the moon in 2024 and land on it in 2025. People last walked on the moon 50 years ago.

Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson and her team had barely started loading nearly 1 million gallons of fuel into the Space Launch System rocket at daybreak Saturday when the leak cropped up in the engine section. Ground controllers tried to plug it, but the leak persisted.

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

During last Monday’s launch attempt, hydrogen fuel escaped from elsewhere in the rocket. Technicians tightened up the fittings over the past week, but Blackwell-Thompson cautioned that she wouldn’t know whether everything was tight until Saturday’s fueling.

Thousands of people had jammed the coast to see the Space Launch System rocket soar. Local authorities expected huge crowds because of the long Labor Day holiday weekend.

The $4.1 billion test flight is the first step in NASA’s Artemis program of renewed lunar exploration, named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology.

Twelve astronauts walked on the moon during NASA’s Apollo program, the last time in 1972.

Artemis — years behind schedule and billions over budget — aims to establish a sustained human presence on the moon, with crews eventually spending weeks at a time there. It’s considered a training ground for Mars.

Chris O’Meara / Associated Press Photographers pack up their gear in Cape Canaveral after NASA canceled the scheduled launch of its new moon rocket. For the second time in a week, a fuel leak foiled the liftoff.