If all goes according to plan, four astronauts are set to become the first humans to travel past the confines of our planet’s gravity well to the Moon in over half a century.
NASA is hoping to launch its Artemis 2 mission a mere two months from now — two months earlier than originally planned — by launching the four individuals on board an Orion spacecraft mounted to its enormous Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
The goal isn’t to touch down on the lunar surface just yet, a goal NASA has reserved for its follow-up Artemis 3 mission, which is tentatively scheduled for 2027.
But it’s nonetheless a daring feat. The Artemis 2 crew will be flying around the Moon and back in an enormous arc, likely reaching the farthest point from Earth that any human has traveled before, including NASA’s Apollo missions.
And though drama has plagued the Artemis program, this next mission is starting to really come into focus.
Over the weekend, for instance, NASA conducted a dress rehearsal for its scheduled February launch date. An image shows Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch dressed up in their bright orange Orion Crew Survival System suits, spacesuits that have been in the works for many years now.
According to the space agency, the countdown demonstration test simulated what will go down on the launch day itself, including donning the suits and climbing in and out of the spacecraft.
However, the SLS rocket isn’t on the launch pad yet, which forced the crew to board inside NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building.
It remains to be seen when the SLS will roll out to the pad at Launch Complex 39B, which played a key role during the Apollo program. But the Orion was already stacked on the SLS in October inside the building, allowing the astronauts to conduct the rehearsal.
Engineers are now “conducting final preparations on the spacecraft, rocket, and ground systems,” per the agency.
As Spaceflight Now reported earlier this month, the dress rehearsal was meant to take place on November 19, but issues with Orion’s hatch forced the agency to delay the test.
“This demonstration was paused when a blemish was found on the crew module thermal barrier, preventing hatch closure until it could be addressed,” a NASA spokesperson told the publication at the time.
However, the agency added that “NASA remains on track to launch Artemis 2 no later than April 2026 with opportunities to potentially launch as soon as February.”
It’s an exciting moment as we count down the weeks and days to official launch day. The dress rehearsal served as the “final verification of the timeline for the crew and supporting teams on the ground,” according to NASA, and will be followed by preparations for any emergency that might arise at the launch pad.
It’s an enormous and highly complex task, but with an enormous potential payoff. The last time humans were anywhere near the Moon was during NASA’s Apollo 17 mission, which launched a hair over 53 years ago.
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