NASA rolls Artemis 2 rocket to the pad ahead of historic moon launch

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The rocket that will launch the next humans to the Moon is on its way to its historic mission, which could take off in just a few weeks.

from NASA Space Launch System (SLS), built to support the agency Artemis 2 mission and usher in a new era of crewed flights to the Moon, which will depart from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) here at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida this morning (January 17), beginning a 4-mile trek to Launch Complex-39B (LC-39B).

Engineers spent a year and a half stacking the Artemis 2 SLS, which rolled out of the VAB for the first (and hopefully only) time today as a fully assembled launch vehicle. SLS began its journey at 7:04 a.m. EST (1204 GMT), standing on the rocket’s Mobile Launch Platform (MLP), whose massive 7.5-foot (2.3 m) treads rolled the rocket from the VAB’s High Bay 3 down the river rock-covered road leading to the launch pad.

The SLS is 98 m tall and weighs approximately 2,870 tonnes (2,600 metric tonnes) when fully fueled. The rocket is propelled by two space shuttlesolid rocket boosters (SRB) of the era stacked 177 feet (54 m) high on each side and four RS-25 engines, also originally designed for the Space Shuttle. Together, they produce 8.8 million pounds of liftoff thrust to power the rocket’s upper stages and Orion crew capsule in space.

Traveling at a speed of less than 1 mile per hour, the massive vehicle’s journey from the VAB to the LC-39B is expected to take eight to 10 hours. Once on the launch pad, NASA will spend the coming weeks performing systems integrations and vehicle checks before a powered launch countdown simulation known as a wet dress rehearsal and, if all goes as planned, a launch attempt in early February.

NASA is targeting February 2 for the wet dress rehearsal. February 6 is the earliest possible launch day for Artemis 2, which will carry NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen aboard the Orion spacecraft for an approximately 10-day mission around the moon.

The launch date, however, depends largely on how systems checks will proceed once SLS hits the pad, with backup launch opportunities planned through February 11 and additional windows in March and April.

Artemis 2 is NASA’s second mission Artemis Program and will be the first to pilot a crew aboard Orion. Artemis 1 launched in November 2022, after a payment campaign that ultimately lasted most of the year. After its first deployment in March 2022, wet dress rehearsals and launch attempts for the Artemis 1 SLS were disrupted by cryogenic hydrogen leaksweather delays and other factors that resulted in three returns to the VAB for maintenance.

NASA officials hope to avoid a similar campaign with Artemis 2 and have expressed confidence in the rocket’s readiness and optimism for a launch in the February window.

Upon launch, SLS will deliver Orion to Earth orbit, where the Artemis 2 crew will perform systems checks before a translunar injection that puts them on track for the Moon. This combustion will be supplemented by the temporary cryogenic propulsion stage of SLS, from which Orion and its service module will detach to carry out proximity maneuver tests en route to lunar space.

The Artemis 2 astronauts will not go into lunar orbit. Instead, the mission will follow a “free return trajectory” that will loop the capsule around the moon and bring it back toward it. Earth regardless of any anomalies the crew or spacecraft might encounter during the mission. The flight path ensures the safe return of the crew of Artemis 2 and Orion, without the possibility of a malfunction stranding them in lunar orbit.

Artemis 2 is the next step in NASA’s goal of returning astronauts to the lunar surface, where the agency hopes establish a base in the south polar region of the moon. Artemis 3 will be the first mission designed for a moon landing, but it will only continue if Artemis 2 is successful.

Artemis 2 will be as much a testing ground for Orion’s life support systems as Artemis 1 was for the basic design of the spacecraft. Any unexpected speed bumps during the next mission could cause further delays for Artemis 3, whose planned launch date is already starting to exceed NASA’s hoped-for 2027 goal.

Artemis 2 crew members have been training at KSC, conducting launch day rehearsals over the past few months in preparation for their mission, and were on hand to see their SLS rocket roll for the first time today.