NASA says it’s a ‘go’ for fresh Artemis II lunar launch attempts, but admits risks remain

NASA says the teams are “go for fresh”. Artemis II lunar launch attempt, but admits there are still risks

By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner

NASA is working on launching it Artemis II lunar mission as soon as April 1, Lori Glaze, one of the agency’s acting assistant administrators, said at a news conference Thursday. The mission has been delayed several times, including twice already this year – most recently due to a safety issue with the rocket.

“I’m comfortable and the agency is comfortable targeting April 1 as our first opportunity,” she said, stressing that the date could change depending on the amount of work needed to make the spacecraft flight-ready. “As always, we will always be guided by what the hardware tells us and we will launch when we are ready.”

Artemis II will carry four astronauts – NASA’s Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen – on a record-breaking journey around the moon. Lifted into space by the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, NASA’s Orion capsule will take these astronauts farther from Earth than any humans have gone before.

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NASA officials at the conference emphasized that astronaut safety guides their decisions. But John Honeycutt, head of the Artemis II Mission Management Team, admitted that the data indicate that the likelihood of Artemis II going exactly to plan is only slightly better than a coin toss.

“If you look at the data over time, over the lifetime of just building new rockets, right, the data will show you that one out of two is successful. You’re only successful 50 percent of the time,” Honeycutt said. – I think we are in a much better position than that.

Astronaut safety was at the heart of a recent Office of the Inspector General report released last week that found NASA had room for improvement in terms of risk reduction in its ambitions to land humans back on the moon using the Human Landing System — the agency’s plan to move astronauts from the lunar surface to orbit — and especially for crew survival.

Glaze and Honeycutt emphasized that Artemis II will do something no other mission has done before – and that entails unknown risks.

If NASA moves toward recovery on April 1, the target is 6:24 p.m. EDT, Glaze said. If it misses for some reason, the agency could also target an April 2 launch at 7:22 p.m. EDT, she added. This addition means the agency will have a total of six potential launch dates in early April. Glaze also said the agency is unlikely to try another “wet dress rehearsal” — a critical test of launch readiness that involves filling the rocket with fuel and practicing the countdown that has previously led to many problems with Artemis II.

NASA’s upcoming mission has run into several problems, from hardware issues to schedule delays to budget overruns. Last month, NASA scrapped a March launch date for the rocket and moved it from the launch pad after the SLS ran into problems with helium flow during a dress rehearsal — it had previously experienced hydrogen leaks and other problems in a previous wet dress that had caused its target launch to slip once already this year. Similar problems delayed its predecessor Artemis I by months.

Shawn Quinn, manager of NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program, said the helium problem stemmed from a seal blocking the flow of helium and that it has been fixed. Artemis II will likely roll back to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla., by March 19, he added.

And all those delays have bolstered the agency’s plans to return astronauts to the moon. Last month, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced that Artemis III, originally envisioned as a manned lunar landing, would actually be limited to another trip into orbit. The agency is now aiming for 2028 and Artemis IV landing astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than half a century.

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