NASA has begun rolling out the Space Launch System rocket for Artemis II, opening a launch window on Feb. 6 for the first crewed mission to orbit the moon in more than 50 years.
The towering booster is making its slow move to the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where teams will ready SLS and the Orion spacecraft for a full “wet dress rehearsal” that includes loading liquid propellants and practicing countdown operations.
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The 10-day mission will send four astronauts around the moon and back, marking the first such voyage since Apollo 17 in 1972 and setting the stage for Artemis III, which aims to return humans to the lunar surface. NASA says Artemis “will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.”
Artemis II will fly Orion without docking to any lunar platform, focusing on deep-space navigation and systems performance with astronauts aboard. The crew features NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen.
Entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, speaking at a press conference at Kennedy, said the lunar campaign would serve as a proving ground for increasingly autonomous spacecraft operations. “We talk about building a moon base,” he said. “Now, day one of the moon base is not going to look like this glass-enclosed dome city that we might imagine some day. That’s certainly what the ideal end state would be. But it’s probably a lot of rovers that are moving around, a lot of autonomous rovers that are experimenting with mining, or some mineral extraction capabilities to start.”
Isaacman added that missions across the solar system will lean more on onboard intelligence. “Naturally, in terms of what we want to achieve in space, you’re going to incorporate more autonomy in our robotic missions. We’re looking at a mission to Venus right now that could have some onboard AI capabilities in it. So this is the way we’re going to go. But I tell you, if humans are on a spacecraft, they’ll always have a vote, they always have a say in it.”
Hansen, a former fighter pilot, called Artemis II “good for humanity,” saying the mission has changed how he looks at the night sky. “I had previously taken the moon for granted,” he said. “But now I’ve been staring at it a lot more. And I think others are going to join us in staring at the moon a lot more as there are humans flying around the far side.”
Koch said adaptability remains a core astronaut skill. “Yes, you train and prepare for everything, but the most important thing is that you’re ready to take on what you haven’t prepared for,” she said. She described the moon as a “witness plate” preserving the solar system’s history. “We can actually learn more about solar system formation, more about how planets form maybe around other stars, more about the likelihood of life out there—starting with studying the moon.”
Following reentry, Orion is slated to splash down in the Pacific Ocean, where recovery teams supported by the U.S. Navy will retrieve the spacecraft and its crew.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
