A fuel leak was discovered during NASA's Artemis I moon rocket launch on Saturday, which was the US space agency's second attempt to send its lunar rocket to the moon. The next launch window could be between September 19 and October 4, or in the second half of October, as NASA reports that the launch will not occur on the next scheduled date of September 6. Before humans attempt the journey, Artemis I, the organization's first step toward returning humans to the Moon, will test the journey.


NASA announced in a press conference that it will not attempt to launch the spacecraft during the current launch window, which ends on September 6, after the Artemis I SLS-Orion spacecraft launch was aborted on Saturday. The US space agency claimed that the launch was aborted because liquid hydrogen was still being pumped into the rocket when a leak was discovered close to the base of the rocket.



Jim Free, NASA Associate Director for Exploration Systems Development, claims that the following launch window could occur between September 19 and October 4. The next window will be October 17 to October 31 if NASA is unable to launch the rocket three times by then, he said.



NASA communications specialist Rachel Kraft wrote on the space agency's Artemis blog that teams would "establish access to the area of the leak at Launch Pad 39B over the next several days, and in parallel conduct a schedule assessment to provide additional data that will inform a decision on whether to perform work to replace a seal either at the pad, where it can be tested under cryogenic conditions, or inside the Vehicle Assembly Building."


On August 29, NASA put a stop to the first Artemis I SLS-Orion launch attempt from Florida's Kennedy Space Center while engineers investigated why a bleed test to bring the RS-25 engines on the bottom of the core stage to the correct temperature had failed.


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Over the coming days, NASA is most likely to reveal the next Artemis I launch date. According to a report by AFP, the rocket may not be able to launch in the first few days of October because an astronaut crew is scheduled to use the Kennedy Space Center for a rocket launch to the International Space Station. The launch could also occur in the second half of October, according to the space agency.