Orion helium leak no threat to Artemis II reentry, but will require redesign

NASA’s schedule currently puts the launch of Artemis III in 2027 and Artemis IV in 2028. Kshatriya said he was confident NASA, working the European Space Agency and Airbus, which builds the service module, will be able to fix the valve problem in time for Artemis IV. Manufacturing of the Artemis IV service module is largely complete.

“I’m pretty sure we’re going to need to, at a minimum, tweak the design to prevent the leak rate that we have, if not fundamentally change the way the valve works,” he said.

Valves are a common bugaboo on rockets and spacecraft. Nearly every US human spaceflight program has dealt with malfunctioning or leaky valves. Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule suffered helium leaks in its propulsion system, along with other issues, during a test flight to the International Space Station in 2024. Helium valves on the Space Launch System rocket had to be replaced in the run-up to the Artemis I and Artemis II launches. SpaceX, too, has scrubbed launches due to valve problems. The list goes on.

“There are a lot of options for how to take care of this problem,” Kshatriya said of the issue on the Orion spacecraft. “If anything, I’d characterize it as a production redesign risk for the Artemis IV mission, which I think we can get in front of, and which is why we put so much attention on it during this mission to make sure [we understand] what we’re seeing.”

The big lesson NASA learned on Artemis I involved the capsule’s heat shield. The ablative thermal barrier burned away unevenly as the craft reentered the atmosphere, but Orion still made it to a safe, on-target splashdown. NASA officials said they are confident the heat shield will hold up on Artemis II after adjusting the path Orion will take through the upper atmosphere. A new heat shield design will debut on Artemis III.

NASA engineers spent two years investigating the heat shield issue after Artemis I. Kshatriya does not expect the valve redesign to take as long.

“It’s not a safety of flight, safety of crew, must-work function like the heat shield investigation sent us down,” he said. “It’s going to take work to get it right, but it’s not of that magnitude.”