This morning, NASA officially announced a no earlier than March 6th target launch date for Artemis II. That date is contingent on completion of some work at the launch pad, and a positive result from the upcoming Launch Readiness Review, which is scheduled for late next week.
In a press conference this morning at Kennedy Space Center, Dr. Lori Glaze, NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate said, “Following that successful wet dress yesterday, we’re now targeting March 6th as our earliest launch attempt.”
She then added that, “I want to be open and transparent with all of you — there is still pending work. A lot of forward work remains, including the post-wet dress analyses. We have some significant work to be completed out at the pad,. We also have a multi-day flight readiness review coming up later next week. We need to successfully navigate all of those, but assuming that happens, it puts us in a very good position to target March 6th.”
Dr. Glaze said later that, “Regarding the crew — they will go into what we’re calling a soft quarantine at Johnson Space Center later today. Then at probably around L-minus five days, or possibly a little earlier, they would transition here to Kennedy Space Center to continue their quarantine up until launch.”
So, the crew is in quarantine in preparations for a possible launch attempt in early March, and senior officials at the Cape are feeling good about their chances to launch Artemis II sometime in the March window, but Dr. Glaze warned viewers that there is still work to be completed, data to be analyzed and a holistic review into the readiness of all aspects are yet to be completed.
More information
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Pad Work Remaining
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the Artemis II Launch Director filled out what pad changes are required prior to launch: “We really just have one big milestone left: contingency pad access. We got through our drain operations early this morning and got into inerting. We’ll get back into the pad probably within the next hour or so — certainly by the end of first shift today. We’re doing the preps for the lift, so we could be ready for that as soon as this evening.”
Credit: NASA livestream
Once we get the platforms lifted up,” she added, “we have two of them, one that provides access to the intertank and to the booster, and another that provides access just to the boosters — we’ll establish access in those volumes and do the FTS retest. That involves disconnecting ordnance, doing the retest, reconnecting ordnance, and closing out those volumes. It’s not a short 12-hour job — it spans several days. But that’s really the big thing we have left to do before launch.”
“Getting through this wet dress was an important milestone. [..] But in terms of the big work remaining, it really is the contingency pad access and the FTS retest,” Ms. Blackwell-Thompson concluded.
Watch The Press Conference
