NASA’s next launch to the moon is back on track.
Artemis 2 leaders met over the past two days, conducting the mission’s Flight Readiness Review (FRR) before rolling Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule back to the launch pad for liftoff. Repairs to the SLS were recently completed inside NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, where ground crews will now prepare the vehicle for transport to KSC’s Launch Complex-39B.
The article continues below
“During the flight readiness review, we had extremely thorough discussions — very open, transparent,” said Lori Glaze, NASA’s Exploration Systems Development acting assistant administrator, during a press briefing after FRR today. It’s a short timeline, but NASA officials say they’re putting safety first as they work toward their next launch opportunity.
“We talked a lot about our risk posture and how we mitigate those risks,” Glaze so. “We reviewed the challenges we’ve had and how we’ve dealt with them, and we talked about the work that remains, what remains to be done, and how we’re going to get through all of this.”
Artemis 2 is NASA’s first crewed mission the moon for more than 50 years. It will launch NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day journey around the moon and back to Earth aboard the Orion spacecraft.
Their mission had been scheduled to begin earlier this month. The SLS had a shaky initial fuel test during the rocket’s first “wet dress rehearsal” (WDR) countdown simulation, but successfully completed that procedure during a second attempt in February. Procedures after that WDR were uncovered, however a disruption of the helium flow in the SLS upper stage, leading to a return on 25 February to VAB for repair.
Once back in the hangar, NASA engineers diagnosed and addressed the issue with enough confidence to target Artemis 2’s April launch opportunity. The problem was traced to a quick coupler (QD) seal on the SLS’s upper stage. The QD is the interface where the umbilicals from the rocket’s launch tower transfer fuel into the vehicle. A similar problem led to an aborted countdown during the first Artemis 2 WDR, when hydrogen was detected leaking from a QD on the SLS first stage.
“Our combined engineering teams across our ground systems and SLS teams came up with a design fix. That design fix was implemented on a test article, and we’ve successfully tested it, and we’ve qualified it for use on Artemis 2, and the modified QD is already on the upper stage,” said Exploration Ground Systems program manager Shawn Quinn during today’s briefing.
Now, NASA officials are confident that the rocket will be ready for launch as soon as April 1.
Helium is used to maintain certain environmental systems and to pressurize the SLS’ propellant tanks. But the float problem was found after the completion of the second Artemis 2 WDR and did not interfere with its success. That problem has now been resolved, and NASA officials determined that a third fuel test will not be necessary after the Artemis 2 stack returns to the pad. Instead, the mission will go straight to launch capability.
“Every time we refuel the vehicle, it takes a little bit of life out of those tanks,” Glaze told Space.com during today’s briefing.
“We’ve trained the team. We’ve trained the hardware, and I just want to tell you, from my perspective, when we refuel the vehicle next time, I’d like it to be on a day that we could actually launch,” she added. “I want to be able to ask ‘go’ to start.”
As its name suggests, Artemis 2 will be the second mission of NASA’s Artemis program — but it’s the first to fly a crew aboard Orion. An unmanned Orion capsule was launched on Artemis 1 in November 2022 to certify the spacecraft’s flight systems in lunar orbit. Now Artemis 2 will verify the capsule’s ability to support astronauts in deep space.
Ultimately, the goal of NASA The Artemis program is to establish a sustained presence on and around the moon. The agency hopes that this will build the skills and knowledge needed to set up a manned outpost at Marchas it hopes to do in the 2040s. Artemis 2 was originally designed as a precursor to the program’s first lunar landing on Artemis 3 in 2028, but a recent shake-up has restructured NASA’s plans.
Artemis 2’s mission remains unchanged: fly a single figure-of-eight loop around the Moon and back to Earth. However, the roadmap for missions after that has changed a bit. Artemis 3 will no longer land on the moon. Instead, that mission will focus on rendezvous and docking maneuvers between Orion and SpaceX’s Spaceship lunar lander and/or blue origin Blue moon lands. Both of these private vehicles won NASA Human Landing System contracts to provide landing services for future Artemis missions, and the space agency has indicated a willingness to fly whichever spacecraft may be ready in time.
With the new timelinesNASA has not pushed its 2028 goal of putting boots on the lunar surface. But it has moved the program’s first lunar landing to Artemis 4 and aims to achieve the same with Artemis 5 within less than a year of its predecessor.
If Artemis 2 cannot launch on April 1, NASA has other options from April 2 to April 6, with a new window opening on April 30 and possibly extending into May.
