A new technical issue has emerged in Nasa’s Artemis II mission, forcing the space agency to wheel the rocker back to the assembly building. The issue emerged just days after a successful countdown rehearsal.
Nasa announced on February 22 that it will roll back its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US, to the Vehicle Assembly Building, highlighting another hiccup in Nasa’s mission, which has already seen a number of false starts and delays.
The rocket is planned to be wheeled back to the agency’s Vehicle Assembly Building, a 160-metre-tall facility where rockets are assembled and repaired.
The rollback is expected to occur as early as tomorrow, February 24.
The move comes after engineers discovered a problem with the flow of helium to the rocket’s upper stage on February 21, forcing managers to pull the vehicle off the pad before high winds reached Florida’s coast.
The rollback will preserve the April launch window, pending how quickly the issue is diagnosed and fixed.
WHAT IS ARTEMIS II?
Artemis II is Nasa’s first crewed mission to fly humans around the Moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972, more than 50 years ago.
The roughly 10-day mission will not land on the Moon, but it will take four astronauts. The team of astronauts comprises Nasa’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
The team will go on a loop around the far side of the Moon and back to Earth, venturing farther from our planet than any humans have ever travelled.
Glover will become the first Black astronaut to fly around the Moon, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-American to leave Earth orbit.
The mission’s primary purpose is to test the Orion spacecraft, the SLS rocket, and all life-support and navigation systems under real deep-space conditions; a critical stepping stone before Artemis III attempts an actual lunar landing, planned for 2027.
WHAT HAPPENED TO ARTEMIS II?
The road to launch has been anything but smooth.
The crew was announced in April 2023, but the mission was repeatedly delayed.
The delay came first due to the damage found on Orion’s heat shield after the uncrewed Artemis I test flight in November 2022, and then by issues with the spacecraft’s life-support system.
Rocket stacking, the process of assembling the SLS piece by piece inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, only began in November 2024 and was completed in October 2025.
The fully assembled rocket rolled out to Launch Pad 39B on January 18, 2026.
The first countdown rehearsal on February 2, however, ran into multiple problems, including a liquid hydrogen fuel leak with just five minutes to go, cold weather affecting cameras and equipment, and audio communication dropouts between ground teams.
Nasa pushed the launch window from its original February target to March 2026. A second rehearsal on February 19 went successfully, raising hopes for an imminent launch date announcement.
Then came the helium issue two days later.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ARTEMIS II NOW?
Returning to the Vehicle Assembly Building will allow engineers to access the upper stage and identify the root cause of the helium flow problem.
Nasa’s quick decision to begin rollback preparations, rather than waiting, is seen as a deliberate move to protect the April launch window, which opens on April 1.
The four-member crew, who had entered quarantine in Houston ahead of an anticipated launch, were released on the evening of February 21 and will re-enter isolation roughly two weeks before the next targeted launch date.
Nasa has said it will hold a media briefing in the coming days to discuss rollback plans and revised timelines.
