The Artemis II mission aims to send four astronauts​ — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — on a flight around the far side of the moon and back.

NASA is moving forward with preparations for the Artemis II mission, and the agency will soon provide live coverage of a major milestone. On Thursday, Feb. 19, NASA will broadcast its next wet dress rehearsal for the powerful Space Launch System rocket,

The rocket’s core stage will be loaded with more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic fuel during the upcoming tanking phase.

During the lead-up to NASA’s Artemis 1 mission back in 2022, recurring hydrogen leaks led to significant delays and a cancelled launch attempt. The agency had three years to address the underlying issues with the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s hardware,

A NASA test to confirm repairs to seals in the SLS’s liquid hydrogen fueling system was only partially successful because of problems with ground equipment.

NASA’s first crewed moon mission in decades was delayed as its engineers grapple with an all-too-familiar rocket problem: hydrogen leaks. Fixing the issue is even trickier than it may seem.

The agency held a press briefing to discuss the results of the redo wet dress rehearsal at 11 a.m. ET on Friday. During the briefing, Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said the leak repairs proved to be “rock solid” and that there was “really no leakage to speak of.”

The space agency said Sunday it's targeting Tuesday for the slow, four-mile trek across Kennedy Space Center​, weather permitting.