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“Putting team on the rocket and taking the team around the Moon, this is going be our primary step towards a continual lunar existence,” Honeycutt stated. “It’s 10 days [and] 4 astronauts going further from Earth than any other human has actually ever taken a trip. We’ll be verifying the Orion spacecraft’s life assistance, navigation and team systems in the truly severe environments of deep area, which’s going to lead the way for future landings.”
NASA’s 322-foot-tall( 98-meter)SLS rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building on the eve of rollout to Launch Complex 39B.
Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
NASA’s 322-foot-tall (98-meter)SLS rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building on the eve of rollout to Launch Complex 39B.
Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
There is still much work ahead before NASA can clear Artemis II for launch. At the launch pad, service technicians will finish last checkouts and closeouts before NASA’s launch group collects in early February for a crucial practice countdown. Throughout this countdown, called a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR), Blackwell-Thompson and her group will supervise the loading of the SLS rocket’s core phase and upper phase with super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.
The cryogenic fluids, especially liquid hydrogen, provided fits to the Artemis launch group as NASA prepared to release the Artemis I objective— without astronauts— on the SLS rocket’s very first test flight in 2022. Engineers dealt with the concerns and effectively released the Artemis I objective in November 2022, and authorities will use the lessons for the Artemis II countdown.
“Artemis I was a test flight, and we found out a lot throughout that project getting to introduce,” Blackwell-Thompson stated. “And the important things that we’ve discovered relative to how to go load this automobile, how to fill LOX (liquid oxygen), how to pack hydrogen, have actually all been rolled in to the method which we mean to do for the Artemis II lorry.”
Discovering the correct time to fly
Presuming the countdown wedding rehearsal goes according to strategy, NASA might be in a position to release the Artemis II objective as quickly as February 6. The schedule for February 6 is tight, with no margin for mistake. Authorities generally have about 5 days monthly when they can release Artemis II, when the Moon remains in the best position relative to Earth, and the Orion spacecraft can follow the appropriate trajectory towards reentry and splashdown to restrict tension on the pill’s heat guard.
In February, the offered launch dates are February 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11, with launch windows in the over night hours in Florida. If the objective isn’t off the ground by February 11, NASA will need to stand down up until a brand-new series of launch chances starting March 6. The area firm has actually published a file revealing all offered launch dates and times through completion of April.
John Honeycutt, chair NASA’s Mission Management Team for the Artemis II objective, speaks throughout a press conference at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 16, 2026.
Credit: Jim Watson/AFP by means of Getty Images
John Honeycutt, chair NASA’s Mission Management Team for the Artemis II objective, speaks throughout a press conference at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 16, 2026.
Credit: Jim Watson/AFP through Getty Images
NASA’s leaders are excited for Artemis II to fly. NASA is not just racing China, a truth the company’s previous administrator acknowledged throughout the Biden administration. Now, the Trump administration is pressing NASA to achieve a human landing on the Moon by the end of his governmental term on January 20, 2029.
Among Honeycutt’s tasks as chair of the Mission Management Team (MMT) is making sure all the Is are dotted and Ts are crossed amidst the craze of last launch preparations. While the hardware for Artemis II is on the relocation in Florida, the astronauts and flight controllers are finishing up their last training and simulations at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“I believe I’ve got a great eye for launch fever,” he stated Friday.
“As chair of the MMT, I’ve got one task, and it’s the safe return of Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy. I think about that a responsibility and a trust, and it’s one I mean to translucent.”
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