BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — NASA’s SLS Rocket and Orion Spacecraft are all set to roll out of the Vehicle Assembly Building and onto launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center.
Saturday’s rollout ahead of the Artemis II mission will begin at 7 a.m.
NASA’s first moon mission with astronauts since Apollo 17 could launch as early as next month.
The 10-day mission will send NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a journey around the Moon and back.
Mission managers say the flight will put the Orion spacecraft through its paces to validate systems for future missions including NASA’s next moon landing.
During a briefing at KSC, Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said a February launch remains possible, but the timeline depends on results from upcoming testing.
“We need to get through wet dress,” Blackwell-Thompson said. “We need to see what lessons we learn as a result of that, and that will ultimately lay out our path toward launch.”
NASA officials emphasized Artemis II is a test flight designed to push Orion’s systems to their limits.
But John Honeycutt the Artemis Mission Management Team Chair said, “I’ve got one job, and it’s a safe return of Reid and Victor and Christina and Jeremy. I consider that a duty and a trust.”
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