Artemis II Moon Mission: NASA Begins Rolling Giant Rocket to Launchpad

The Space Launch System and Orion capsule are being transported to the launchpad before an astronaut mission that could launch as soon as Feb. 6.

Reid Wiseman, a NASA astronaut selected in 2011, said on Saturday morning that a few days ago, he looked up and saw the crescent moon in the light of the sunrise. He thought about the far side of the moon — the part that is always hidden from Earth.

“You just think about all the landmarks we’ve been studying on that far side and how amazing that will look,” Mr. Wiseman said at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Mr. Wiseman is the commander of a mission called Artemis II, and the giant rocket that is going to send him on the trip that will provide him with those views is on the move — just not very fast or very far, yet.

On Saturday morning, a mammoth crawler began transporting the Space Launch System vehicle, the Orion capsule and the launch tower — 14 million pounds altogether — from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launchpad 4.2 miles away.

“This is the start of a very long journey,” said Jared Isaacman, the NASA administrator, as he and the four crew members of Artemis II talked with reporters while the rocket moved, almost imperceptibly, in the background.

The crawler is one of two that NASA built in the 1960s to carry the Saturn V rockets during the Apollo program and later modified for the space shuttles. Its peak speed is less than one mile per hour, and it takes half a day for its trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building, which is essentially a large garage where the pieces of the 322-foot-tall rocket were put together.

Once at the launchpad, final preparations will begin — hooking up connections for electrical power and propellants and performing checks of key systems.

That will lead up to a dress rehearsal of the countdown in early February. The rehearsal will include filling the rocket’s propellant tanks with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, performing the same tasks that will precede launch but stopping the countdown with 29 seconds left before the point when the engines would ignite. The propellant tanks will then be drained, and NASA engineers and officials will review the data.

The earliest possible launch date is Feb. 6 with other opportunities through Feb. 11. “We have zero intention of communicating an actual launch date until we get through” the dress rehearsal, Mr. Isaacman said.

If Artemis II does not launch by then, the next launch window would open in March.

If the dress rehearsal goes smoothly, NASA will aim to launch in February. “I know the teams are prepared,” Mr. Isaacman said. “I know this crew is prepared.”

Artemis II will carry Mr. Wiseman along with Victor Glover and Christina Koch, also of NASA, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. Mr. Glover will be the first Black man to fly by the moon, Ms. Koch the first woman and Mr. Hansen the first non-American.

The rocket will loft the Orion capsule with the astronauts inside and send it on a 10.5-day trip swinging around the moon without landing and then returning to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

The Space Launch System has been tested once before during the Artemis I mission in 2022, but no astronauts were aboard then. The Orion was empty except for mannequins with sensors to measure vibrations, acceleration forces and radiation.

The key goal of Artemis II is to test a life-support system, which is not possible without humans aboard. The following mission, Artemis III, will be the big event when NASA astronauts step on the moon again.

The destination will be somewhere near the lunar south pole, where frozen water can be found in shadowed craters, a potential resource for future missions.

NASA is aiming to launch Artemis III before the end of 2028, but many experts doubt that the lander needed to take the astronauts to the lunar surface — a version of the gigantic Starship vehicle under development by SpaceX, the rocket company led by Elon Musk — can be ready by then.

Both SpaceX and Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, have offered alternatives that could speed the development of a lander for Artemis III.

“I did meet with both Blue Origin and SpaceX on their acceleration plans,” Mr. Isaacman said. “These are both very good plans. I would say they both reduce technical risk from where we were before.”

The Artemis II astronauts said they were ready for their trip around the moon and had a chance to check out the Orion capsule during a countdown test while the rocket was still in the Vehicle Assembly Building.

Mr. Wiseman recalled his glee that a button to dim the Orion display worked, unlike the one in the training simulator that never changed the screen’s brightness.

“I just want you all to remember we are four human beings getting in this magnificent spacecraft, and sometimes the simplest things put a huge smile on our face,” he said.

The astronauts also talked about conversations they have had with their families about the risks of something going fatally wrong during the journey.

“I went on a walk with my kids,” Mr. Wiseman said. “I told them, ‘Here’s where the will is, here’s where the trust documents are, and if anything happens to me, here’s what’s going to happen to you.’ And that is a part of this life.”

Ms. Koch also had some simpler matters to take care of with her husband.

“It’s not like the International Space Station, where we can just make a phone call,” she said. “So he’s not going to be able to call me and ask where something is in the house. He’s going to have to find it.”

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