NASA plans to launch four astronauts on a long-awaited trip around the moon as early as April 1, the agency announced Thursday.
Teams are on track to return the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to the launch pad on March 19 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said Lori Glaze, executive associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.
“Everything is going well,” Glaze said at a news conference.
The proposed launch date of April 1 depends on the remaining work to be completed on the rocket while in the hangar and subsequent work on the launch pad.
The decision came after mission managers and top NASA officials gathered for a two-day meeting known as the Flight Readiness Review.
The mission, known as Artemis II, will be the first time NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule will carry people. In the 10-day journey, the crew members — NASA astronauts Reed Weissman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — are expected to orbit the moon, traveling farther from Earth than any human has gone before.
The 322-foot-tall Space Launch System rocket is in its hangar for repairs after being returned from a NASA launch pad on February 25.
The move followed a major fuel test on February 19, known as a “wet dress rehearsal,” in which NASA practiced each step of a simulated launch countdown. Although that rehearsal was successful, engineers later discovered a blockage in the flow of helium to the rocket’s upper stage. That prompted NASA to return it for repairs, which meant pushing back any launch opportunities in March.
Engineers recently replaced the seal that caused the blockage, and NASA teams installed fresh batteries on the rocket and Orion spacecraft and tested various systems on the booster.
The wet dress rehearsal was NASA’s second attempt to fully load a Space Launch System rocket with more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellant. The first wet dress rehearsal on February 2 was cut short after engineers discovered a different problem: a hydrogen fuel leak from the tip of the rocket. That problem forced NASA to rule out launch opportunities available in February.
NASA previously launched a rocket on an unmanned spacecraft around the moon in 2022 – the Artemis I mission. That flight was delayed by six months due to a hydrogen leak.
