NASA Eyes Next Wet Dress Rehearsal for Artemis II

NASA is targeting Thursday, Feb. 19, as the tanking day for a second wet dress rehearsal ahead of the agency’s Artemis II test flight. Over the weekend, teams replaced a filter in ground support equipment that was suspected of reducing the flow of liquid hydrogen during a Feb.

12 partial fueling test. The Feb. 12 test provided enough data to allow engineers to plan a second wet dress rehearsal this week, and crews have reconnected the line with the new filter and are reestablishing proper environmental conditions. The rehearsal will run the launch team and supporting groups through a full range of operations, including loading cryogenic liquid propellant into the SLS rocket’s tanks, conducting a launch countdown, demonstrating the ability to recycle the countdown clock, and draining the tanks to practice scrub procedures.

Launch controllers will arrive at their consoles in the Launch Control Center at Kennedy Space Center at 6:40 p.m. EST on Feb. 17 to begin the nearly 50-hour countdown. The simulated launch time is 8:30 p.m. on Feb.

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