The Orion spacecraft, which will fly 4 individuals around the Moon, showed up inside the spacious Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida late Thursday night, all set to be stacked on top of its rocket for launch early next year.

The late-night transfer covered about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from one center to another at the Florida spaceport. NASA and its specialists are continuing preparations for the Artemis II objective after the White House authorized the program as an exception to overcome the continuous federal government shutdown, which started on October 1.

The continual work might establish Artemis II for a launch chance as quickly as February 5 of next year. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen will be the very first people to fly on the Orion spacecraft, a lorry that has actually remained in advancement for almost 20 years. The Artemis II team will make history on their 10-day flight by ending up being the very first individuals to take a trip to the area of the Moon because 1972.

Where things stand

The Orion spacecraft, established by Lockheed Martin, has actually made numerous stops at Kennedy over the last couple of months because leaving its factory in May.

The pill moved to a fueling center, where service technicians filled it with hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, which will feed Orion’s primary engine and navigating thrusters on the flight to the Moon and back. In the very same center, groups filled high-pressure helium and ammonia coolant into Orion propulsion and thermal control systems.

The next stop was a neighboring structure where the Launch Abort System was set up on the Orion spacecraft. The tower-like abort system would pull the pill far from its rocket in case of a launch failure. Orion stands approximately 67 feet (20 meters) high with its service module, team module, and terminate tower incorporated together.

Groups at Kennedy likewise set up 4 ogive panels to act as an aerodynamic guard over the Orion team pill throughout the very first couple of minutes of launch.

It was then time to move Orion to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where a different group has actually worked all year to stack the components of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. In the coming days, cranes will raise the spacecraft, weighing 78,000 pounds (35 metric lots), lots of stories above the VAB’s center aisle, then up and over the transom into the structure’s northeast high bay to be reduced atop the SLS heavy-lift rocket.