NASA sets potential launch date for Artemis II mission to the moon
NASA has set a potential launch date for the Artemis II rocket mission to the moon -- the first time humans will travel beyond low Earth orbit since 1972.
After conducting a "Flight Readiness Review" (FRR), NASA's assessment of its readiness to launch the Artemis II mission, the space agency announced it is proceeding with its goal of launching the 10-day mission around the moon on April 1 at 6:24 p.m. ET.
"At the conclusion of the FRR, all the teams polled go to launch and fly Artemis II around the moon pending completion of some of the work before we roll out to the launch pad," said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, at a press conference on Thursday at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"It's a test flight, and it's not without risk, but our team and our hardware are ready," Glaze said.
NASA initially aimed for February and March launch dates, but a fuel leak on Feb. 3 during the first Wet Dress Rehearsal initially delayed the mission. The ground team then detected an interrupted flow of helium to the Artemis II rocket’s upper stage on Feb. 21 that forced NASA to return the rocket and spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs.
NASA is now targeting March 19 for the rollout that will return the vehicle to the pad. That will be followed by the configuration for launch.
They are also adding a potential launch date for April 2 at 7:22 p.m. ET. The April 2 date was not part of the original calendar and will be an additional possible date, not a replacement for another one.
NASA said they would not conduct another Wet Dress Rehearsal prior to the launch attempt. Wet Dress Rehearsals are used to test the launch crew’s ability to fuel the rocket, perform the countdown and meet key milestones. Glaze explained that each time they fuel the rocket, “it takes a little bit of life out of those tanks."
“From my perspective, when we tank the vehicle the very next time, I would like it to be on a day that we could actually launch. I would like to do it on launch day and if we are able to successfully fully tank the vehicle, I want to be able to poll go to launch,” said Glaze.
When asked about the odds of the Artemis II mission going exactly the way it’s planned, John Honeycutt, the chair of the Artemis II Mission Management Team, said he would put the odds somewhere between one and two and one and 50, citing the latter numbers as the odds for rockets that are launched more frequently. Honeycutt, however, followed up by saying he doesn’t want people to think the mission’s success is a 50-50 proposition.
“If you look at the data over time, over the lifespan of building new rockets, right, the data would show you that one out of two is successful. You’re only successful 50% of the time,” Honeycutt said. “I think we’re in a much better position than that.”
Honeycutt added, “I don’t want people to take that as being that we should be scared to go fly, because we’re not scared to go fly. We do an outstanding job of understanding the risk, buying down the risk, mitigating the risk and putting together controls to manage the risk.”
Artemis II is NASA’s first crewed mission of the Artemis program and will be the first time humans will travel beyond low-Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. The mission will send four astronauts, three Americans and a Canadian, on a more than 600,000-mile, 10-day journey around the moon (a lunar flyby) to test critical spacecraft systems.
ABC News' Julia Jacobo contributed to this report.
