NASA on Saturday began the final phase of launch preparations for its Artemis II mission, moving the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket toward its Florida launchpad ahead of the first crewed flight under its lunar return programme.
The 322-foot-tall SLS rocket was rolled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center shortly after sunrise, travelling at about one mile per hour on its mobile launch platform for a four-mile journey to the pad. Hundreds of NASA employees and contractors gathered along the route to watch the slow procession.
“We truly look at that and see teamwork, we see global cooperation, we see a strong nation leading the way,” said Artemis II mission commander Reid Wiseman, speaking to reporters as the rocket moved toward the pad.
The Artemis II mission will be the second flight of the multibillion-dollar Artemis programme and the first to carry astronauts. The four-person crew — three Americans and one Canadian — will undertake a roughly 10-day mission that will send them around the moon and back, pushing humans farther into space than ever before.
“It represents an extraordinary American workforce, right there,” said mission astronaut Jeremy Hansen of Canada.
NASA is targeting a launch as early as February 6, though the schedule depends on the outcome of a critical “wet dress rehearsal,” planned four days earlier, which will simulate the full launch countdown to identify potential technical issues. Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said the rehearsal would play a central role in determining readiness.
“Wet dress is really the driver,” Blackwell-Thompson said on Friday. “You’re going to need a little bit of time to look at the data.”
The February timeline could also be affected by scheduling demands at the space centre tied to another astronaut mission to the International Space Station, after the return of a previous crew was accelerated due to a medical issue.
NASA has identified three potential launch windows for Artemis II, extending through April, aligned with orbital mechanics required for the lunar flyby. The windows currently run from February 6 to April 11, March 3 to March 11, or April 1 to April 6.
Artemis II follows the programme’s uncrewed test flight in 2022 and is intended to pave the way for later missions that would land astronauts on the moon later this decade.
