NASA rolled its huge moon rocket back to the launchpad at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center Friday morning, setting the stage for four astronauts’ much-anticipated journey around the moon.
The 322-foot-tall Space Launch System rocket, topped with the Orion capsule, will launch the crew on a 10-day trip as early as April 1.
The rocket's painstakingly slow, 4-mile trek from the hangar to the launchpad began early Friday at 12:20 a.m. ET, following a several-hour delay because of high winds. The rocket reached the launchpad 11 hours later.
It was the second rollout process for the 11-million-pound rocket. The booster was first rolled to the launchpad in mid-January, but a few weeks ago, engineers found a blockage in the flow of helium that required NASA to roll the rocket back to its Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs.
The rocket's return to the launchpad involved a moving platform known as a crawler-transporter, which inched along at a maximum speed of 0.82 miles per hour, according to NASA.
The upcoming mission, known as Artemis II, will mark the first time that NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft carry people. It will be the system’s second spaceflight, following an uncrewed mission around the moon, Artemis I, in 2022. When the crew members — NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — swing around the moon, they could reach a distance farther from Earth than any humans have gone before.
Wiseman, Koch, Glover and Hansen entered quarantine at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Wednesday evening — a standard preflight procedure to ensure the crew members remain healthy before the launch. The astronauts are scheduled to fly to Florida about five days before liftoff.
While the rocket was in the hangar, NASA said it was able to fix the helium flow issues by replacing a seal in a line that feeds helium from ground systems into the rocket. Engineers also replaced batteries on the rocket and the Orion spacecraft and conducted various tests.
The helium issue was uncovered last month after an hourslong fueling test and launch-day walkthrough, known as a wet dress rehearsal. It was the rocket’s second such rehearsal, after the first had to stop early due to leaking hydrogen at the tail end of the rocket.
Last week, NASA officials met for a two-day conference known as a flight readiness review. Mission managers, the four-astronaut crew and other NASA representatives discussed the upcoming flight, its risks and the work ahead. The agency decided to press ahead with a launch attempt in April, formally certifying the rocket and spacecraft for flight.
