NASA's Artemis II rocket with the Orion spacecraft slowly rolls back towards the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Feb. 25.John Raoux/The Associated Press
Artemis II is heading back to the launch pad in an effort to make a historic flight around the moon in early April, the U.S. space agency NASA said Thursday.
During a news briefing at the Kennedy Space Center, mission managers said the giant SLS rocket designed to send a four-person crew on a translunar voyage could be rolled into position for launch as early as March 19, providing all final preparations are completed by then.
Currently, the next available window for a launch runs from April 1 through 6.
The SLS is currently inside the Space Center’s massive Vehicle Assembly Building, where it has been undergoing repairs for the past two weeks after an earlier, unsuccessful push to launch.
The decision to proceed with an April launch attempt comes after a two-day flight readiness review, during which engineering teams involved in all aspects of the mission weighed in on questions of safety and on prospects for success.
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The Artemis II crew – commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen – also participated in the review online, said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.
“Having them join us in this review really reinforced the importance of having open, honest discussions about our path forward and about the risks that we’re asking them to take,” Dr. Glaze said.
She added that at the conclusion of the flight readiness review “all the teams polled ‘Go’ to launch and fly Artemis II around the moon.”
NASA said on Thursday it is on track for an early April liftoff of Artemis II, its first crewed moon mission in 50 years, despite repeated delays.
Reuters
Based on the current schedule, the crew will enter a prelaunch quarantine on March 18, two weeks ahead of the earliest possible flight.
Artemis II is the second mission in NASA’s revived lunar program, but it will mark only the first attempt to launch the SLS, topped with the Orion crew capsule, with astronauts on board.
Its predecessor, Artemis I, was an uncrewed 16-day lunar flight that took place in late 2022. The long gap since then – and the lack of experience with the mission hardware that this implies – has been cited as one reason why engineers have found it difficult to anticipate and eliminate technical problems with the rocket while it is on the launch pad.
NASA looks to March launch for Artemis II after successful test
Several factors are at play in determining when Artemis II will launch, including the relative positions of the Earth and the moon in relation to the sun’s illumination, which is needed to power systems on the crew capsule.
Mission planners have determined that the required conditions can be met during a five- or six-day window each lunar cycle.
The SLS was first rolled out in mid-January ahead of a launch window that opened on Feb. 6. That flight opportunity was abandoned after a hydrogen leak emerged while the rocket was being fuelled as part of a dress rehearsal. Repairs were conducted on the launch pad and a second, more successful dress rehearsal took place on Feb. 19.
Less than 48 hours later, engineers detected a problem with helium flow in the rocket’s upper stage. It was soon apparent that the SLS would need to be rolled back for more extensive repairs. This took the March launch window off the table.
At the same time, NASA announced changes to its lunar program that related to the missions that are in still being planned for after Artemis II.
NASA moves to revamp lunar program as Artemis II undergoes repairs
That includes making Artemis III a docking test in Earth orbit next year, instead of an attempted lunar landing, as originally planned.
Under the new program architecture, the landings will begin with Artemis IV, currently scheduled to fly in 2028.
Artemis II is the first mission in more than 50 years that is planned to take astronauts further than about 400 kilometres above Earth’s surface – the orbiting altitude of the International Space Station.
Canada is one of several countries participating in the NASA-led program, with a contribution that includes Canadarm III, a robotic arm that is being developed for an orbiting lunar station called Gateway.
NASA’s Artemis rocket suffers fuel leak during practice countdown
In response to a question about the status of Gateway, which is not mentioned in the revised architecture, Dr. Glaze said the announced changes to the Artemis program were in relation to transportation to the moon in the near term.
“There’s nothing in there that says anything about what is anticipated for any other parts of our program,” she said.
John Honeycutt, who chairs the Artemis II mission management team, raised eyebrows when he stated that, based on historic examples, the chance that something on the mission might not go according to plan was closer to 1 in 2 (50 per cent) than to 1 in 50 (2 per cent).
He later stressed that “I don’t want people to take that as just being that we should be scared to go fly, because we’re not scared to go fly. We do an outstanding job of understanding the risk, buying down the risk, mitigating the risk and putting together controls to manage the risk.”