Victor Glover recalls Artemis II cabin-leak warning before Moon burn

Victor Glover said a suspected cabin-leak warning aboard Orion sounded about 15 minutes before the Artemis II translunar injection engine burn on April 2.

Glover talked about the leak warning Oct. 18 with Chris Hadfield at the Starmus VIII festival in Tenerife, Canary Islands. Hadfield is a former Canadian astronaut. When the warning sounded, Orion was in a highly elliptical orbit roughly 38,000 miles or 61,000 kilometers from Earth, and heading back toward the planet.

The alert came on April 2, the mission’s second day. Orion was approaching its closest point to Earth, roughly 100 miles or 160 kilometers above the surface. It was heading toward perigee, the lowest point in its orbit, before the engine firing that would send the crew toward the Moon.

Crew members and mission control faced a binary decision. They could proceed with the burn and head for the Moon. They could also put on spacesuits and prepare to come straight home. Glover said that had the warning arrived five minutes later, completing the engine firing might not have been possible.

Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency looked out the window. He said the crew appeared to be heading into the middle of Earth as Orion descended very low. The spacecraft passed through an area with extra orbital debris and satellites. In that area, object density and radiation levels rise.

Judd Frieling, a NASA flight director, told Space.com that the warning was a false alarm during an April 2 media briefing. Once Frieling made his determination, mission managers gave Artemis II permission to proceed with the planned engine firing. The decision came as the spacecraft neared Earth, heading toward its closest approach.

The spacecraft’s main engine ran for about five minutes and 50 seconds. The engine firing sent the four crew members on their way to the Moon. Glover said he observed the timer counting down and the velocity figures rising. He watched the climbing figures as the spacecraft accelerated away from Earth, with everything tracking and looking good.

A translunar injection is the engine firing that sends a spacecraft toward the Moon. The maneuver meant astronauts were heading toward the Moon for the first time since the Apollo era. The engine firing finished the translunar injection and let the spacecraft escape Earth’s gravity. Once free, the crew moved toward the Moon at around 24,500 mph, or 39,430 kph.

No previous crew had traveled as far from Earth as Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. They reached 252,756 miles, or 406,771 kilometers. The maximum distance marked a new human record. It went beyond the distance reached during Apollo missions.

Reid Wiseman served as commander and Victor Glover served as pilot. Jeremy Hansen served as mission specialist for the Canadian Space Agency, and Christina Koch flew alongside them.

The astronauts returned safely on April 10. They splashed down in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. The splashdown ended a mission that lasted nearly 10 days in space.

NASA said Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman and pilot Victor Glover would stop serving as active astronauts. They would keep supporting moon exploration in an emeritus capacity. Glover began a leadership position at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. It began Sept. 1, which was also his Navy retirement day.

In July, Jeremy Hansen left the Canadian Space Agency. His retirement followed the April Moon flight. It left Christina Koch as the only Artemis II crew member still on NASA’s active astronaut rolls.

President Donald Trump presented the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the crew at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. A Sept. 9 report covered the ceremony. The event honored the crew for their moon mission earlier in the year.