Artemis II Crew Faced a Cabin Leak Warning Minutes Before the Moon Burn

A cabin leak warning came close to cutting short NASA’s Artemis II mission to the moon, pilot Victor Glover said, according to Space.com. The alarm sounded around 15 minutes before the engine burn that would send the crew toward the moon, and it turned out to be false.

Glover described the episode on Oct. 18 in a discussion with former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield at the Starmus VIII festival in Tenerife in the Canary Islands. “If it had happened five minutes later, we may not have been able to have that burn,” he said.

What happened on the second day

The incident took place on April 2, the second day of the mission. Space.com reported that the Orion spacecraft had traveled some 38,000 miles (61,000 kilometers) from Earth in a highly elliptical orbit, a stage that gave the crew and mission control a chance to test the capsule’s systems before committing to the lunar trip.

Orion was then swooping back toward Earth, approaching its closest point of roughly 100 miles (160 km) above the surface, ahead of the translunar injection burn. Glover said mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency looked out the window and remarked that they were about to run into the middle of Earth, because the spacecraft was getting so low.

The low pass also took Orion through a region with orbital debris and satellites. Glover said the density of objects rises there, along with radiation.

The decision the crew faced

When the leak warning appeared, the crew and mission control had to decide whether it was real. Glover recalled the choice as whether to do the burn and head for the moon, or to put on spacesuits and prepare to return to Earth right away.

NASA flight director Judd Frieling told Space.com at an April 2 media briefing that the warning was a false alarm. Artemis II received the go-ahead, and Orion fired its main engine for approximately five minutes and 50 seconds. Glover recalled watching the timer count down and the velocity numbers climb, saying everything was tracking and looking good.

What this means for the mission’s legacy

The burn marked the first time astronauts had headed toward the moon since the Apollo era, according to Space.com. With the engine firing complete, the crew broke free of Earth’s gravitational hold and moved toward the moon at around 24,500 mph (39,430 kph).

The mission then made history. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, the commander, Glover and Christina Koch, together with Hansen, traveled farther from Earth than any humans before them, reaching a maximum distance of 252,756 miles (406,771 km).

The four returned safely on April 10, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego after nearly 10 days in space. Glover’s account shows how close the lunar leg came to a different outcome, and how much depended on quickly judging whether a spacecraft warning was real.

Around Prague, based on reporting by Space.com