Artemis II is going to be on the ground a little longer. After a two-day “wet dress rehearsal” test in which cryogenic propellant was loaded into the rocket, a liquid hydrogen leak and an issue with a valve crew module hatch led to the launch being scrubbed for now.
“NASA now will target March as the earliest possible launch opportunity for the flight test,” wrote Rachel H. Kraft.
Stephen Clark at Ars Technica reminds us that such issues are exactly why these tests exist:
The practice countdown was designed to identify problems and provide NASA an opportunity to fix them before launch. Most importantly, the test revealed NASA still has not fully resolved recurring hydrogen leaks that delayed the launch of the unpiloted Artemis I test flight by several months in 2022. Artemis I finally launched successfully after engineers revised their hydrogen loading procedures to overcome the leak.