Space and Physics
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It’s been a bumpy road, but it looks like the goal is finally in sight! NASA has provided an update on the repairs to Artemis II, and the space agency is aiming to launch the first humans into deep space in over 50 years in just a few weeks. The first suitable date for launch is April 1 – no joke – and then four humans will be off to a 10-day trip around the Moon.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.The astronauts, NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are expected to enter quarantine in the coming week or so, and Artemis II, the rocket Space Launch System, and spacecraft Orion will be rolling out of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and onto the launchpad on March 19.
“We are planning to roll back out to the pad, targeting next week,” Lori Glaze, NASA acting associate administrator, said during a press conference. “A week from today, on the 19th, we are on track for that. Everything's going pretty well, maybe even a little ahead of that. But we're shooting for the 19th.”
“Once we get back out to the pad, we'll configure for launch pending completion of the work in the VAB. And at the pad, we are on track for a launch as early as April 1st. And we are working toward that date. I'll say the launch time on April 1st is at 6:24 pm.”
NASA has released a plan for the possible launch dates and launch windows for April. Each launch window is two hours long, starting as Glaze said, on April 1 at 6:24 pm EST. Then it’s April 2, 7:22 pm. April 3 is 8 pm on the dot. April 4 is at 8:53 and April 5 is at 9:50 pm. April 6 will be the last of that bunch, with a launch window opening at 10:36 pm.
If the rocket is not ready for any of these, it will be several weeks before it can launch again. That’s not on NASA, but on the Moon. One of the goals of the mission is for the astronauts to see regions of the Moon that no human has directly seen before, and so the far side of the Moon needs to be illuminated. The next available date after the early April set is April 30, with a launch window opening at 6:06 pm.
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