NASA’s Artemis II moon mission completed its second “wet dress rehearsal” on Thursday, setting the stage for a potential launch date of March 6.
The first attempt, made earlier this month, exposed leakage issues with the rocket’s liquid hydrogen fuel tank.
Wet dress rehearsals take a rocket launch through the entire process of fuelling, checking systems, boarding crew, and even counting down to launch — only stopping the clock a few minutes before a rocket would really fire up its engines during an actual launch.
In a press conference on Friday, NASA representatives confirmed that the fuel leak had been corrected.
With the second dress rehearsal deemed a success, NASA will now complete its final preparations for launch.
It announced that the four-person Artemis II crew, including Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, began their quarantine on Friday.
The Artemis II will launch its crew on a ten-day voyage, flying by the moon before returning to Earth.
It will be the first time in over five decades, since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, that humans travel to the moon.
The mission will also make Canada the second country to send a human to the moon.
