NASA is targeting Friday, March 6 as the earliest possible launch date for the historic Artemis II mission, which will fly astronauts to the moon for the first time in five decades.
Agency officials announced the target date in a news conference on Feb. 20, following a successful “wet dress rehearsal” — a crucial test in which the Space Launch System (SLS) moon rocket is filled with fuel and taken most of the way through the launch countdown — completed on Thursday (Feb. 19).
“There’s a lot of forward work that remains,” Lori Glaze, NASA’s Moon to Mars program manager, said at the conference. “Including the post-wet-dress analyses, some significant work to be completed out at the [launch] pad… and a multi-day flight readiness review that will come up later next week.”
Wet dress doesn’t leak
Thursday’s wet dress rehearsal was the second attempt to fuel the SLS rocket on the lunach pad. The first fueling test, which concluded on Feb. 2, was marred by hydrogen leaks and various other issues, prompting NASA to scrub the test with about five minutes left on the countdown clock.
In Thursday’s rehearsal, mission crew successfully completed the terminal launch countdown twice, according to NASA.
New seals have since been installed on the interface used to fuel the rocket, keeping leaks at bay and hydrogen fuel concentrations at allowable levels, the agency added.
The second dress rehearsal did experience a communication issue early on, when the Launch Control Center lost contact with the crew on the ground. The team temporarily switched to backup communications to continue fueling before normal communications were restored.
“Yesterday we were able to fully tank the SLS rocket within the planned timeline,” Glaze said. “We also successfully demonstrated the launch countdown.”
History in the making
Artemis II is scheduled to take four astronauts on a 10-day trip around the moon. This is the first time NASA is sending humans back to the moon in more than 50 years, and the first time that a woman and a Black man will be part of a lunar crew.
Artemis II’s four-person crew includes three NASA astronauts: Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Christina Koch. The fourth member of the crew is Canadian Space Agency astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen.
Consisting of the Orion crew capsule perched atop the Space Launch System core stage, the 322-feet tall (98 meters) Artemis rocket is one of the most powerful rockets ever built — producing 8.8 million pounds of thrust upon liftoff.
If it blasts off, swings its crew around the moon, and splashes back down on Earth successfully, then NASA will have tested systems and gathered data ahead of the Artemis III mission, which aims to land astronauts on the moon in 2028.
NASA wants to establish a long-term presence on the moon through the Artemis Program, eventually using the lunar surface as a stepping stone to Mars.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on Feb. 20 at 12:30 p.m. ET to include additional details about the Artemis mission.
