Artemis II rollout target
NASA is now targeting no earlier than March 20 for the Artemis II rocket rollout to Launch Pad 39B, with the crewed lunar flyby mission slated for early April — a 10-day mission with four astronauts and a Pacific splashdown planned NASA blog — and social chatter flags final crew training and pad-movement prep this week too XploreDeepSpace post. This mission is the first crewed lunar flyby in ~50 years and a critical systems test ahead of later Artemis missions that will establish a sustainable lunar base NASA blog.
Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are the four astronauts assigned to Artemis II. (nasa.gov) A helium leak discovered during a Wet Dress Rehearsal on Feb. 3 and an interrupted helium flow later in February forced the rocket and Orion back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for diagnostics and repairs, according to reporting and NASA updates. (abcnews.com) The vehicle will ride NASA’s Crawler‑Transporter 2 from the VAB to Launch Pad 39B, a roughly four‑mile trip conducted at about 1 mile per hour that can take up to 12 hours to complete. (friendsofnasa.org) For the April attempt NASA has a constrained window — mission analyses show Artemis II must launch by April 6 to avoid slipping another month, with an April 1 liftoff previously targeted at about 6:24 p.m. EDT. (spaceflightnow.com) Recovery planning includes joint NASA and Department of Defense teams and naval ship recovery rehearsals off the U.S. West Coast, with prior full‑scale recovery tests and drills conducted near San Diego to practice pulling Orion and the crew aboard a Navy ship. (nasa.gov) While still near Earth early in the flight, Orion will perform a proximity‑operations demonstration with the interim cryogenic propulsion stage and verify spacecraft systems in a high Earth orbit—NASA’s press materials list an approximate high‑Earth orbit of ~44,525 by 115 statute miles for those checkouts. (nasa.gov)
