NASA will have to wait another day to roll the lunar rocket back to the launch pad, but that shouldn’t affect when it launches.
Artemis 2 Space Launch System (SLS) rocket has been inside NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida since its return from the launch site last month. The agency had been preparing for a flight in March the moonbut pre-launch tests revealed maintenance requirements engineers could only address in the hangar.
Now, the agency plans to roll the SLS back to the pad at Launch Complex-39B (LC-39B) on March 20 — a day’s delay from the previous target of March 19. The culprit this time can be traced to an electrical harness for the flight termination system that needs a quick replacement. The work on said harness is already complete, but added just enough work NASA engineers’ pre-deployment checklist to push the rocket’s transport back to the LC-39B by 24 hours. However, it will not delay the target date of April 1 for the launch of Artemis 2, according to a NASA update.
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NASA still aims to launch SLS within a Artemis 2 window that lasts from 1.-6. April. The mission is the first manned part of NASA’s Artemis program, and the first flight Orion spacecraft with astronauts on board.
Shakedown cruise will fly NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Kochas well Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day trip around the moon on the first manned mission to lunar space in more than half a century. It is designed as a springboard to later Artemis missions planned over the next few years that will test and mature technologies such as deep space life support systems and new lunar landers for NASA’s ultimate goal of the program: to establish a permanent human presence on the lunar surface.
It is a similar concept to how NASA has maintained The International Space Stationcontinuous occupancy for the past 25 years, through crew rotations and cargo supply missions to maintain crews in room while conducting scientific research in low earth orbit. NASA wants a similar framework for missions to the lunar surface, but must first perfect the technologies needed to enable such long-term excursions as far from Earthwhere an emergency evacuation would take days instead of hours.
If all goes according to plan during Orion’s debut astronaut mission around the moon on Artemis 2, NASA plans to launch Artemis 3 to low Earth orbit (LEO) to practice rendezvous and docking maneuvers with one or both of the two lunar landers contracted for The Artemis program. They include SpaceX‘s Spaceship and Blue origin‘s Blue moon lands. Both have experienced developmental delayshowever, and is part of the reason the current Artemis mission architecture is outlined as it is.
Artemis 3 had originally been planned as the program’s first moon landingwith a target launch in 2028. A recent programmatic shuffle, however, reorganized that roadmap to redesign Artemis 3 with the goal of launching to LEO in 2027, and designated Artemis 4 as the first mission to return astronauts to the lunar surface, which remains targeted for 2028. And, if NASA’s timeline holds, the agency has indicated the possibility of a second 2028 lunar landing on Artemis 5.
For the schedule to stick, Artemis 2 has to go just right, and soon. The March 20 VAB rollout for SLS will be the rocket’s second trip to LC-39B, on a launch campaign NASA had originally hoped to have wrapped up by now.
Artemis 2 SLS rolled to the pad the first time on January 17and had aimed for a start in February. Problems during two consecutive “wet dress rehearsal” test countdown simulations led to the rocket’s subsequent VAB rollback, reducing the mission’s option for a March launch to the available April dates. NASA officials have stated that there are launch windows for Artemis 2 beyond the April possibilities, which include April 30, but have not specified dates beyond next month.
NASA plans to live stream the launch of the SLS on March 20, which typically takes about 12 hours from first movement inside the VAB to liftoff on LC-39B. The four-mile journey is made possible thanks to NASA’s Tracked Transporter Vehicle, which carries the massive 322-foot-tall (98-meter) rocket and mobile launch platform at an average speed of 1 mph (1.6 km/h).
