NASA hauls its repaired moon rocket from hangar back

For the second time this year, NASA moved its moon rocket from the hangar out toward the pad Friday in hopes of launching four astronauts on a lunar fly-around next month.

If the latest repairs work and everything else goes NASA’s way, the Space Launch System could blast off as early as April 1 from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre. The Artemis II crew went into quarantine this week in Houston. The 322-foot (98-metre) rocket began the slow 4-mile (6.4-kilometre) trek in the middle of the night, transported atop a massive crawler used since the 1960s Apollo era. It was expected to take 12 hours. The trip was held up for several hours by high winds.

The three Americans and one Canadian will zip around the moon in their capsule and then come straight home without stopping. Their mission should have been completed by now, but hydrogen fuel leaks and clogged helium lines forced two months of delay. While technicians plugged the leaks at the pad, the helium issue could only be fixed in the Vehicle Assembly Building, forcing NASA to roll the rocket back at the end of February.

The last time NASA sent astronauts to the moon was during Apollo 17 in 1972. The new Artemis programme aims for a two-person landing in 2028.