NASA’s Artemis II moon rocket began rolling back to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center just after midnight on March 20, returning to the pad after repairs and closeout work ahead of the agency’s first crewed lunar mission in more than 50 years.
NASA said the rollout started at 24:20 local time after a plan for an earlier move were delayed by high winds in the area.
The integrated Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, mounted on a mobile launcher, made the roughly four-mile trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building aboard Crawler-Transporter 2. NASA said the vehicle arrived at Launch Pad 39B at 11:21 local time after an 11-hour journey.
The rollout marked the latest step in NASA’s preparations for Artemis II, the first crewed flight of the Artemis program. The mission will carry NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on an approximately 10-day mission around the Moon and back.
Artemis II is the first mission to fly crew aboard the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, and the first crewed lunar flyby mission since the Apollo era.
NASA returned the rocket and spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building after a February 21 wet dress rehearsal, when teams identified an issue preventing helium from flowing to the rocket’s upper stage. While Artemis II was back inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, engineers made repairs and carried out maintenance checks.
According to NASA, teams activated a new set of flight termination system batteries, replaced other batteries on the upper stage, core stage and solid rocket boosters, and charged Orion’s launch abort system batteries. Engineers also replaced a seal on the core stage liquid oxygen feed line and reassembled and retested the oxygen tail service mast umbilical plate to confirm a tight seal.
NASA said Artemis II remains on track for an April launch window.
The March 20 rollout was the second trip to the pad for the Artemis II stack this year. NASA had previously rolled the vehicle out in January before bringing it back for testing and repairs.
NASA is targeting a launch no earlier than April 1, with additional launch opportunities available in early April.