Artemis II Moon Rocket Ready for Move to Launch Pad
A “wet” dress rehearsal is slated for Feb. 2, and the launch with the crew members aboard may happen as early as Feb. 6th.
More than half a century after Apollo 17’s boots left the last human prints in lunar dust in December 1972, the Artemis program is poised to revive an era when deep space was a destination, not a dream.
This new program aims squarely beyond Earth’s orbit, treating the Moon not as a finish line but as the opening waypoint for a sustained human presence in deep space. With Artemis II set to send astronauts back into the lunar neighborhood in early February, the U.S. is rekindling the robust, outward‑looking spirit of exploration and signals that the long pause since the last Moon landing is finally over.
Artemis II is NASA’s first crewed test flight of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, a roughly 10‑day mission that will send four astronauts on a lunar flyby to validate life‑support, navigation, and other systems before future Moon landings. It is the first journey by humans to the vicinity of the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission.
The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will soon be heading to the launch pad.
Inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the agency’s Artemis II Moon rocket stands poised for the next step in its journey. Engineers are targeting no earlier than 7 a.m. EST, Saturday, Jan. 17, to begin rolling NASA’s powerful SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher, to the spaceport’s Launch Pad 39B.
NASA’s crawler-transporter 2 will carry the 11-million-pound stack at about one mile per hour along the four-mile route to Launch Pad 39B. The journey will take up to 12 hours. The time of rollout is subject to change if additional time is needed for technical preparations or weather.
Our @NASAArtemis Moon rocket is ready to roll! We’re targeting no earlier than 7am ET (1200 UTC) on Saturday, Jan. 17, to begin the rocket's journey at @NASAKennedy from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B. https://t.co/HEMM8BMH2O pic.twitter.com/IPiX3mJxOm
— NASA (@NASA) January 16, 2026
A “wet” dress rehearsal is slated for Feb. 2, and the launch with the crew members aboard may happen as early as Feb. 6th.
A critical milestone is a “wet dress rehearsal,” during which flight teams will load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellant and practice the countdown sequence—pushing the spacecraft to its limits without astronauts onboard. During similar preparations for Artemis II’s uncrewed predecessor, Artemis I, persistent problems with hydrogen leaks ultimately delayed that mission’s launch for months. This time NASA is hoping the process will be much smoother. The earliest date in the mission’s launch window is February 6.
If all goes according to plan, Artemis II will lift off on its historic journey carrying four astronauts—NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen—on a 10-day flight around the moon and back: the Orion spacecraft will follow a free-return trajectory that uses the moon’s gravity to loop the crew around and back toward Earth. Reaching about 4,700 miles beyond the lunar farside, the crew will go the farthest from Earth any humans have ever voyaged, ensuring not only rigorous system checks but also breathtaking views of our home planet—and, of course, the moon.
During the mission, the crew will wear sensors to monitor their health and physiological responses to the deep-space environment beyond the moon. And among the myriad experiments packed into Artemis II’s science payloads will be AVATAR (A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response), a system designed to mimic individual astronaut organs. Artemis II will be the first time AVATAR has been tested so far from Earth.
NASA has officially confirmed the return of humans to the Moon.
Artemis II, the first crewed mission to venture beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972, is now set to launch on February 6, 2026. This 10-day flight will send four astronauts on a journey around the Moon,… pic.twitter.com/mm2smhqwNu
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) January 15, 2026
Here’s hoping for a smooth rollout, a crisp wet dress rehearsal, and a spectacular launch that carries Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen safely around the Moon and home again, in an event that sets the successful trajectory for lunar landings and missions. and new discoveries that will follow in their wake.
Though Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. may have to have a chat with the new NASA director about his motivational techniques for the ground crew.
NEWS 🚨: NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman personally ordered 6,000 Krispy Kreme doughnuts and coffee for employees in Huntsville, Alabama, ahead of Artemis II
'Caffeine worked really well during the Apollo era' pic.twitter.com/vCYiClzLXJ
— Latest in space (@latestinspace) January 15, 2026
Good luck and Godspeed!
Note: NASA will stream the SLS/Orion Artemis II rollout live on its main NASA TV/streaming outlets, with the primary public feed running on the NASA YouTube channel starting at 7 a.m. EST on rollout day.
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Comments
Artemis II moon rocket is ready for launch
“baby steps”—term used by mission planners to describe the small, incremental steps required before humans can return to the lunar surface.
“Baby steps to the door. Baby steps to the elevator. Baby steps into the elevator. I’m in the elevator!”
This seems pretty ambitious for a space system that hasn’t yet achieved orbital flight.
“an era when deep space was a destination”
Is the moon really “deep space?” Survey: use the thumbs to vote.
Gully Foyle is my name /
Terra is my station /
Deep space is my dwelling place /
And death’s my destination…
That was the original version of The Ballad of Gully Foyle”, which he devised when he was still stranded in space, and dying, due to the treachery of the Vorga spacecraft operators. (“I kill thee filthy, Vorga!”) By quoting that early version, you are apparently presenting as a pessimist.
Much better known, of course, is that when Gully prevailed and opened the stars to human exploration, by “space jaunting”, he replaced the last line, re his death, with the line that became the title of Alfred Bester’s truly great novel: “The Stars My Destination”.
By the way, in both versions of the Ballad of Gully Foyle, the second line actually reads: “Terra is my Nation”. Not “station” as you have it.
Not so bad from memory, of a book I read 58 years ago.
I thought the original version was more suited to a discussion about deep space.
Once you can jaunt into space, deep becomes pretty meaningless.
One off my all time favorites! Thanks for the reminder, the launch is a fitting occasion for a reread, since my first encounter with this classic took place right around Apollo 11.
I have reservations…. I am very uneasy with this launch.
Me too. I always worry about the safety of the crews. There have only been a few misfortunes, going back to Grissom, White, and Chaffee 59 years ago next week. The crews know they are strapped to a massive potential bomb, and there are other potential points of failure as well. Millions of them, I’d imagine. Some hope, prayers, and positive thoughts are always in order. 🤞
THIS is what makes America great again. Its been a long time coming.
The Apollo F-1 engines were essentially hand built. The present technology is so much better. Over at Dave’s Garage on YouTube, when comparing computer speeds over the years, the fastest desktop PCs are 60 million times faster than the Apollo Guidance Computer that got us to the Moon in 1968.
My FIL worked on the navigation systems for that trip. They were wizards with slide rules.
This one fake as the last one?
/s
You can’t get much faker than this one!
Space rocket efficiency is about cost to launch per kg to LEO (or other orbital point)
Cost per KG to LEO:
SLS: $43,000+, may drop to $10,000
Falcon Heavy: $1500
Starship target: $200-$900
Isaacman will kill SLS at some point and rightly so. Musk will outperform it by somewhere between 10x and 100x …
There are legitimate concerns:
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/isaacman-makes-it-official-artemis-2-will-fly-manned-around-the-moon-despite-orions-heat-shield-concerns/
By the way,
behindtheblack.com
is a great website for space exploration and space launch news, as well as some occasional political commentary from a conservative viewpoint.
A daily visit for me!
Any government functionary that has the brass to respond to an FOIA request with a document where every single word has been redacted should be frog-marched out to the Mall and publicly shot in the head.
Not being funny here but hopefully the “to validate life‑support” bit has already been signed off, validated and confirmed as working BEFORE going to space! 🙂
The crew is as diverse and woke as they could get away with. Two astronauts and two tokens.
Amelia Earheart won initial fame as the first female passenger to cross the Atlantic. Her greatest and enduring fame is being a lousy pilot.
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