NASA delays humanity’s long-awaited return to the moon – again

Humanity’s long-awaited return to the moon has been delayed – again – by NASA.

The American space agency revealed this morning that a fuel leak happened during the trial run of its Artemis II mission.

It added on X: ‘To allow teams to review data and conduct a second wet dress rehearsal, NASA will now target March as the earliest possible launch opportunity for the Artemis II mission.’

Yesterday, engineers filled the rocket’s propellant tanks with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

NASA said the ‘wet dress rehearsal’ was to identify any hiccups that could occur when filling up the rocket’s tanks.

The first trip to our lunar neighbour in 53 years was meant to happen ‘no earlier’ than February 6.

But it was pushed back by two days when bad weather meant the fuelling test run couldn’t happen.

Artemis II will see a giant rocket shove the Orion space capsule into the stars for a 10-day lap around the moon.

The capsule won’t land on the moon itself and will return to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

NASA does have an ulterior motive to finally put humans back (or near, rather) the moon – the mission will test a new life-support system.

Humans will finally set foot on the grey, dusty surface in 2028 for the Artemis III mission.

Got a story? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. Or you can submit your videos and pictures here.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Follow Metro.co.uk on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news updates. You can now also get Metro.co.uk articles sent straight to your device. Sign up for our daily push alerts here.