NASA’s new moon rocket moves to the launch pad for Artemis crew flight

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s giant new moon rocket moved to the launch pad Saturday in preparation for astronauts’ first lunar fly-around in more than half a century, with the out-and-back trip described as potentially launching as early as February. The move began at daybreak with the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule leaving the Vehicle Assembly Building on a long transporter crawl before reaching the pad by nightfall.

Weighing in at 11 million pounds (5 million kilograms), the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule traveled about 4 miles (6 kilometers) at roughly 1 mph (1.6 kph), using a massive transporter previously employed during Apollo and shuttle eras and upgraded for the SLS vehicle’s greater heft. Thousands of workers and their families gathered in the predawn chill to watch the rollout, which NASA framed as long-awaited and delayed for years.

The cheering crowd was led by NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman and all four astronauts assigned to the mission. Crew commander Reid Wiseman told the crowd, “What a great day to be here,” adding, “It is awe-inspiring.” Earlier, Isaacman and other leaders had described the first crew lunar attempt as a key step toward sending astronauts beyond Earth after extensive work to get the system ready.

NASA said the rocket and capsule are part of its Artemis effort, built around the Space Launch System launch vehicle and the Orion crew spacecraft. The astronauts assigned to the 10-day mission are Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a former fighter pilot awaiting his first rocket ride.

The move comes after problems during the first SLS mission and extensive follow-on testing, NASA said. Heat shield damage and other capsule problems during the initial test flight required analyses and tests, pushing back the first crew moonshot until now. NASA also said the upcoming flight will not orbit the moon or land on it, with the landing planned for a later Artemis mission in the lineup “a few years from now.”

Reid Wiseman said the mission crew is eager to go, telling reporters: “They are so fired up that we are headed back to the moon,” and “They just want to see humans as far away from Earth as possible discovering the unknown.” NASA’s John Honeycutt, speaking on the eve of the rollout, said, “This one feels a lot different, putting crew on the rocket and taking the crew around the moon.”

The agency noted that the first and only other SLS launch, in November 2022, sent an empty Orion capsule into orbit around the moon. In the broader context, NASA said the planned lunar fly-around would mark the first trip to the moon for humans since Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out the lunar-landing program in 1972, when 12 astronauts walked on the lunar surface starting with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969.

NASA said only four moonwalkers are still alive, and Aldrin, the oldest, turns 96 on Tuesday. As the next step toward launch continues, NASA said it is waiting to conduct a fueling test of the SLS rocket on the pad in early February before confirming a launch date.

Jared Isaacman told reporters, “We’ve, I think, zero intention of communicating an actual launch date” until completing the fueling demo. NASA said it has only five days to launch in the first half of February before the opportunity shifts into March, leaving the agency to finalize the timing after the test on the pad.