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.”…