NASA’s Artemis II moon mission has cleared one of its biggest hurdles yet. After a full flight readiness review and other checks, the team gave the first manned Artemis flight the green light for launch as early as Wednesday (April 1).
“Something really big is going to happen,” launch director Charlie Blackwell Thompson said at a March 30 press conference.
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The weather is tilting in the mission’s favor, with the latest forecast showing an 80% chance of acceptable conditions for Wednesday’s launch.
Artemis II is NASA’s first opportunity to test the life support systems aboard the Orion crew capsule with astronauts on board, and it is also the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit in more than 50 years. If all goes well, the roughly 10-day flight will help prove that the agency’s Moon-to-Mars hardware is ready for even more dangerous missions down the line, including manned moon landings and a future lunar base.
The long road to the launch pad
The mission didn’t get here in a straight line. Artemis II has overcome technical hurdles, including previous troubles with liquid hydrogen leaks and helium flow problems in the rocket’s upper stages. These issues required additional work in the vehicle assembly building before the rocket could be returned to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA said those issues have been resolved as the team moves forward with final integration, countdown rehearsals and launch preparations.
The focus now is on the release date. NASA’s latest update says cloud cover and the possibility of high ground winds are the main meteorological concerns for launch criteria, but overall conditions look good. The Kennedy Space Center team began countdown activities Monday at 4:44 p.m. EDT, and the agency is targeting launch by Wednesday at 6:24 p.m. EDT.
This launch period will last until April 6th, with April 30th being the last day of backup attempts.
Artemis II will carry NASA astronauts Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a free round trip around the moon, and is expected to break several records. Although the mission will not land on the moon, it will help image the far side of the moon like never before, paving the way for the Artemis III and Artemis IV missions as the U.S. focuses on a more sustained human presence on astronomical satellites.
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