NASA fuels moon rocket for first time in countdown rehearsal

NASA has fueled its huge moon rocket for the first time and completed a countdown test despite a fuel line leak

NASA fueled its huge moon rocket for the first time Monday and went ahead with a critical countdown test despite a fuel line leak.

This was NASA’s fourth crack at the all-important dress rehearsal, the last major milestone before the moon rocket’s long-awaited launch debut.

The previous attempts in April were thwarted by a fuel leak, as well as stuck valves and other technical issues.

Another leak — this time in an external fuel line — almost curtailed Monday’s test at Kennedy Space Center. But NASA managers decided to do the countdown test anyway.

Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said they pushed ahead to see “how the team performed, how the hardware performed, and they both performed very well.”

Engineers wanted to get all the way down to the 9-second mark — just short of engine firing — to validate all the systems and procedures. But it cut off at 29 seconds. NASA spokesman Derrol Nail said it wasn’t immediately known why the countdown stopped.

Earlier, nearly 1 million gallons of super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen were loaded into the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket known as the Space Launch System, or SLS.