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.
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.
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.
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.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY