Artemis II mission astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Tex., on Sept. 24, 2025.Annie Mulligan/The Globe and Mail
NASA’s Artemis II mission is about to take its first step toward the moon.
This week, officials with the U.S. space agency announced the rocket that was built to send Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and three U.S. crewmates on an historic flight around the lunar far side and back will be rolled out to its launch site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida starting Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m. ET.
The 6.7-kilometre road trip is expected to last anywhere from eight to 10 hours.
Artemis II sits in Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday.JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
During that time, the 98-metre-tall rocket, topped by the Orion crew capsule, will be moved by NASA’s Crawler-transporter 2 from the centre’s enormous Vehicle Assembling Building (VAB) to launch pad 39B.
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“It takes us a little while to get out of the building, but about an hour after we get that first motion, you’ll begin to see this beautiful vehicle cross over the threshold of the VAB and come outside for the world to have a look,” said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the mission’s launch director, during a news briefing on Friday.
The rollout is a key milestone for a 10-day lunar mission that could launch as early as Feb. 6.
Following the rollout, the rocket – formally called the Space Launch System (SLS) – must still clear a multitude of additional checks in order to meet that potential launch date.
Artemis II was built to send four astronauts on an historic flight around the lunar far side and back.JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
The most important of those will be a “wet” dress rehearsal, expected to take place around Feb. 2. During wet dress, the SLS – without the crew on board – will be fully loaded with 2.65 million litres of propellant and then run through a countdown up to a preplanned halt at T-minus 29 seconds.
“That’s the driver to launch,” Ms. Blackwell-Thompson said.
She added that preparations for the upcoming launch reflected lessons learned during Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight that encountered various setbacks and multiple rollouts over an eight-month period before it ultimately lifted off in November, 2022.
The rollout is a key milestone for a 10-day lunar mission that could launch as early as Feb. 6.Joe Raedle/Getty Images
If Artemis II is not ready to lift off by Feb. 6, its launch may slide by one or more days until Feb. 11. After that, it would bounce to the next launch window in early March.
NASA has previously said that Artemis II will launch no later than April, though at Friday’s briefing officials reiterated that crew safety remained the mission’s overriding priority.
“I’m not going to tell the agency that I’m ready to go fly until I think we’re ready to go fly,” John Honeycutt, chair of the mission’s management team, said during the briefing, indicating he was prepared to tamp down “launch fever” if he perceived any overeagerness to get the mission under way.
Col. Jeremy Hansen in September, 2024.Annie Mulligan/The Globe and Mail
Once it lifts off, Artemis II will mark the first attempt in more than half a century to send astronauts beyond low Earth orbit – a zone just a few hundred kilometres above the ground where the International Space Station is located.
The moon is roughly 1,000 times farther than that. Only 24 people, all astronauts that were part of the Apollo program of 1960s and 70s, have every ventured to such a distance.
As a member of the Artemis II crew, Mr. Hansen would become the first non-American to do so.
“We’re extremely excited to see the first Canadian go around the moon,” said Mathieu Caron, director of astronauts, life sciences and space medicine at the Canadian Space Agency. “It shines a bright light on Canada’s participation in the space program.”
Astronaut Jeremy Hansen speaks about his upcoming mission during an event at the Canadian Space Agency, in Longueuil, Que., in October, 2025.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
That participation includes the future Canadarm3, a robotic arm being developed for a future orbiting lunar space station called Gateway.
Artemis II is also crucial to NASA’s broader aim of returning to the moon’s surface with Artemis III, which is currently scheduled to fly in mid-2027.
The mission’s crew, which also includes Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch, was selected in 2023.
All four have trained together since then, alongside two back-ups, NASA astronaut Andre Douglas and Canada’s Jenni Gibbons.
NASA astronauts are in the latest phase of training for their flight around the moon. Along with ground staff, they are running simulations of the Artemis II mission that’s expected to launch in 2026.
While the goal of the mission is primarily to fly the Orion crew capsule with people on board for the first time, astronauts are also planning to conduct biomedical tests and make lunar observations during the trip. Depending on the mission’s timing and precise trajectory, the crew may also break the record for distance from Earth.
Mr. Caron said that the crew was continuing to run through their training ahead of launch and would be travelling from their base in Houston to Florida for the rollout.
Closer to the launch date, Dr. Gibbons will also be in the crew capsule to conduct checks ahead of flight, he said.