After hours of transportation, Artemis II has arrived at its launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A wet dress rehearsal, where crews will actually load fuel into the rocket, is expected later this month, which could determine when Artemis II goes to the moon.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said he still plans to move forward with potentially launching as soon as Feb. 6, in two-and-a-half weeks, though there are still criteria that must happen before launch.
“We have, I think, zero intention of communicating an actual launch date until we get through wet dress [rehearsal],” Jared Isaacman, the newly confirmed NASA administrator, said during a Saturday news conference. “But look, that’s our first window, and if everything is tracking accordingly, I know the teams are prepared, I know the crews are prepared. We’ll take it.”
Here's what NASA says happens between now and launch.
Early tests
Immediately after setting up Artemis II at the launch pad, NASA says it began a "long checklist" of preparations at onsite mostly focused on connecting the rocket and spacecraft to the launch pad.
That includes connecting ground support equipment like electrical lines, fuel environmental control system ducts, and cryogenic propellant feeds, according to a press release from NASA.
"We do have a walk down with the crew," Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, launch director for Artemis II, said at a press conference on Friday. "It’s a walk down of the emergency egress system, once it’s configured. We’ll take care of that somewhere in and around our preps for wet dress [rehearsal] is the plan right now."
Wet dress rehearsal
The central task NASA will undertake in preparation for the launch of Artemis II is a wet dress rehearsal, which will take place toward the end of the month, administrators said in a Jan. 9 press release.
NASA labels the run-through as a “wet” dress rehearsal because crews will actually load fuel into the rocket, as opposed to just going through the motions.
The wet dress rehearsal will take the Artemis II crew — without astronauts — through the launch-day protocols up to about 30 seconds until launch. That includes loading more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellants into the rocket, conducting the countdown, and removing propellant from the rocket.
After wet dress rehearsal
If the wet dress rehearsal yields significant problems, NASA may take the rocket and spacecraft back to the Vehicle Assembly Building — another hours-long journey — for additional work.
If the wet dress rehearsal is successful, NASA will do a "flight readiness review," evaluating the preparedness for all flight hardware and infrastructure before deciding on a launch date.
"We’ll take some time after wet dress," Blackwell-Thompson said. "We’ll review the data, and then we’ll set up for our launch attempt. Launch day will be pretty similar to wet dress. There'll be two big differences: one is that we’re going to send the crew to the pad, and the other one is we’re not going to stop at 29 seconds for a planned stop."
The mission's leaders will decide on a selection of dates between February and April, determined with consideration for "the complex orbital mechanics involved in launching on a precise trajectory toward the Moon while the Earth is rotating on its axis and the Moon is orbiting Earth each month in its lunar cycle."
John Honeycutt, the mission management team's chair, told reporters on Friday that it would ultimately be his decision to decide whether or not Artemis II flies on a certain launch date.
"I do not have to have consensus from the [mission management team] to make my decision, relative to giving [Charlie Blackwell-Thompson] my go or no-go," Honeycutt said. "I would like to have consensus ... We do have varied opinions across the team, but at the end of the day, it’s up to me to manage the decision that we make and send it forward to Charlie."
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