NASA is preparing to haul its Artemis II moon rocket back out to its seaside launch pad next week to ready the huge booster for blastoff as early as April 1. This delayed but historic flight aims to send four astronauts on a nine-day trip around the moon, the agency announced Thursday.
At the conclusion of a two-day flight readiness review, Lori Glaze, associate administrator of Exploration Systems Development at NASA Headquarters, said, “All the teams polled ‘go’ to launch and fly Artemis II around the moon, pending completion of some of the work before we roll out to the launch pad.”
She emphasized the nature of the mission, reminding everyone, “Just a reminder to everybody, we talk about it every time we talk about this flight, it’s a test flight, and it is not without risk. But our team and our hardware are ready.”
### Launch Window and Mission Timeline
Based on the ever-changing positions of the moon and Earth, along with a complex mix of mission objectives, NASA must launch Artemis II by April 6. Missing this window would delay the flight by another month or so.
For an April 1 launch, liftoff is expected at 6:24 p.m. EDT, followed by splashdown in the Pacific Ocean nine days later.
### Crew and Previous Delays
NASA workers had originally hoped to launch the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the Orion crew capsule, and its four astronauts—Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen—in early February. However, the much-anticipated flight was delayed due to hydrogen fuel leaks and, more recently, problems with the rocket’s upper stage propellant pressurization system.
The hydrogen leaks were fixed at the launch pad by replacing suspect seals in the umbilical system that attaches fuel lines to the base of the rocket. However, engineers could not access the upper stage at the launch pad, requiring the entire rocket to be hauled back to NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for repairs.
### Repairs and Readiness
Inside the cavernous VAB, engineers extended upper-stage access platforms and quickly identified a displaced seal in a helium quick-disconnect fitting. Pressurized helium is used to push propellants through the propulsion system and to help drain and dry propellant lines. Replacing this seal fixed the pressurization problem.
Additionally, crews replaced batteries in the rocket’s self-destruct system, strap-on boosters, and both SLS stages. They also charged batteries in the Orion capsule’s launch abort system. This work is nearly complete.
NASA managers say the rocket should be ready for the start of its 12-hour roll to Launch Pad 39B next Thursday evening.
Shawn Quinn, manager of Artemis ground systems, praised the team, saying, “I was very proud of the team and the work that they did to quickly understand the root cause and get us back in a posture to roll back out. So far, the VAB processing has gone very well.”
### Mission Risk and Assessment
Summing up the flight readiness review, Glaze acknowledged mission risk was a topic of discussion but declined to provide specific numbers during the Thursday news conference, alongside John Honeycutt, chair of NASA’s Artemis mission management team.
Last week, NASA’s Office of Inspector General reported that the agency’s “risk threshold” for an Artemis moon mission—assuming use of a SpaceX lander—was expected to be about 1-in-40 during lunar operations, with an overall mission risk of 1-in-30 from launch to splashdown. For comparison, the Apollo missions faced a risk of death around 1-in-10.
While Artemis II is not a lunar landing mission and thus implies a lower overall risk, it will be the first piloted flight of an SLS rocket and Orion capsule following a single unpiloted test flight in 2022.
Due to the short flight history and the long gap between launches, Glaze and Honeycutt said providing a realistic risk assessment is challenging.
Glaze commented, “I think sometimes we get tricked into believing that those numbers are somehow really telling us something critically important. I think they’re valuable. I think we can do things in a relative sense to measure what is more risky or less risky. But I agree with John that in this sense, it’s not the first flight, but we’re also not in a regular (launch) cadence. So we definitely have significantly more risk than a flight system that’s flying all the time. But I’m with him, I wouldn’t actually put a number on it.”
### Artemis Program Overview and Future Plans
NASA’s Artemis program, established during the first Trump administration, aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface. Though originally targeted for 2024, budget shortfalls, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other issues have postponed the first moon landing to 2028.
Despite this, NASA recently revised its near-term launch sequence. The Artemis II mission remains set for the first piloted test flight of the SLS rocket and Orion capsule as early as April 1. This flight will be followed next year by Artemis III, where astronauts aboard an Orion capsule in low-Earth orbit will rendezvous and dock with one or both moon landers being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin.
This approach allows NASA to test spacecraft and procedures in space before attempting an actual lunar landing. If these missions succeed, NASA plans at least one, possibly two, lunar landing flights in 2028 using whichever landers are ready.
Afterward, NASA intends to launch a moon landing flight annually to develop the necessary infrastructure and procedures, eventually paving the way for future Mars missions. However, Mars remains a purely aspirational goal for now.
### Artemis II Mission Details
In the near term, Artemis II is the focus of NASA’s attention. Like Artemis I, the Orion crew ship on Artemis II will not enter lunar orbit. Instead, it will follow a “free return” trajectory that carries the crew around the far side of the moon, using lunar gravity to bend their trajectory back toward Earth for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean nine days after launch.
The crew plans to spend the first full day of their mission testing Orion’s flight control, communications, navigation, and life support systems in both low and high Earth orbit before heading toward the moon.
Assuming an on-time April 1 launch, the crew will fly within approximately 4,100 miles of the moon’s surface at the closest approach, traveling farther from Earth than any humans before—about 252,800 miles.
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This mission represents a major milestone in NASA’s Artemis program and lays critical groundwork for humanity’s return to the lunar surface and beyond.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-artemis-ii-moon-mission-april-1/