Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft arrive at Launch Pad 39B

At 6:42 p.m. EST on Saturday, Jan. 17, NASA’s Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft reached Launch Pad 39B after a nearly 12-hour journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Hours earlier, crawler-transporter 2 began its 4-mile trek with the integrated SLS and Orion stacked on top, moving at a maximum speed of just 0.82 mph. Once outside the VAB’s high-bay doors the rocket made a planned pause while teams repositioned the crew access arm, a bridge that provides astronauts and a closeout crew access to Orion on launch day. Editor’s Note: The timeframe for a wet dress rehearsal has been updated.

Engineers and technicians will now prepare the rocket for a wet dress rehearsal, targeted for no later than Feb. 2, in which the team will load the vehicle with cryogenic propellants, run through the countdown and practice draining the propellants; additional wet dress rehearsals may be required and NASA may rollback SLS and Orion to the Vehicle Assembly Building for more work if needed. The Artemis II test flight will send astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen on an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon and back, a step toward new U.S.-crewed missions to the Moon’s surface and helping prepare to send the first astronauts – Americans – to Mars.

Key Topics

Science, Artemis Ii, Kennedy Space Center, Space Launch System, Orion Spacecraft, Reid Wiseman