Artemis II, Sunset Photos, February 1, 2026
Artemis II, Night Shots, February 1, 2026
A few photos from February 1, 2026, of Artemis II from Beach Road at Kennedy Space Center.
Artemis II Viewing Spots
The Artemis II mission will mark humanity’s return to lunar exploration with a crewed spacecraft for the first time since Apollo 17 in December 1972. NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft will carry astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen on an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon and back to Earth.
The launch window opens on February 6, 2026, with additional opportunities on February 7th, 8th, 10th, and 11th. Launch will occur from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center—the same historic pad complex that sent Apollo astronauts to the Moon aboard Apollo 10. After that, LC-39B was reconfigured for the Space Shuttle program, serving as the launch site for 53 missions.
Previously Flown Components Of Artemis II
One of the goals of SLS was to reuse remaining hardware from NASA’s Shuttle program where possible. This was intended to be a cost-saving measure, but given the high price of a single SLS stack costs more than two billion dollars: The SLS rocket for Artemis II (and each Artemis mission) costs approximately $4.1 billion per launch per the NASA OIG, with about half of that being tied up in the rocket and capsule. That’s a lot of money.
Still, there a lot of previously flown pieces of hardware on America’s newest moon rocket.
Artemis II Rollout To LC-39B
SLS began its slow and deliberate journey to Launch Pad 39B from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) early on January 17 at Kennedy Space Center, marking a major milestone in the agency’s quest to return astronauts to the Moon for the first time in more than half a century.
The 322-foot-tall rocket emerged from the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building at 7:04 a.m. EST, carried atop Crawler-Transporter 2 for the four-mile trek to the historic launch complex. The combined stack — rocket, Orion capsule, and mobile launcher — weighs approximately 11 million pounds and is traveling at a top speed of just under one mile per hour.
Looking Back Through Artemis I Photos
Artemis II, NASA’s return to lunar space, is expected to be rolled out to the launch pad this month, with a launch planned for February. That seemed like a good time to review my old Artemis I shots, and I found a few that were pretty good.
The Saturn V Instrument Unit: “Old” Computing’s Last Stand
In the 1960’s digital computers were undergoing a radical change: a switch to integrated circuits and the central processing units (CPUs) that we all know and use today. The Saturn V was no different.
The Saturn V Instrument Unit (IU) served as the rocket’s central guidance and control system, housing the Launch Vehicle Digital Computer (LVDC) developed by IBM. The LVDC utilized magnetic core memory, a non-volatile storage technology composed of tiny magnetized rings that retained data without power. Each core memory module stored 4,096 words, with each word comprising 26 data bits and 2 parity bits, totaling 28 bits per word. These modules were integral to the LVDC’s operation, enabling reliable data storage and retrieval during the mission.
The Launch of Artemis-1, November 6, 2022
If you watched the launch of Artemis-1 on a livestream or on NASA TV on cable television, I can assure you it was ten times better to see it in person. Seeing the launch and being able to share it with like-minded people was an experience unto itself, and is something that anyone interested in spaceflight ought to have in their own right at least once.
For Artemis-1, my wife and I were at a viewing spot that pretty much only locals know about, and were closer than pretty much anyone except those on base. We were many miles away, mind you, NASA makes sure that the general public is far away enough to be safe from the rocket should things go catastrophically awry. Still, we were able to see Artemis sitting on its launch pad in the distance, shining like a beacon in the night. Close enough.
The weather was great — thin clouds, the evening typically cool (around 72ºF) for a fall evening in Florida, with light winds and not many biting bugs. There were about one hundred or so other people there, and we all gathered onto a fishing pier that extends out into the Banana River. It was a party-like atmosphere, with people having a good time and in a good mood.
Everyone was keeping up with the launch on Internet streams from their phones, with many tuned into coverage on YouTube from Spaceflight Now. Others had NASA’s stream up, but it was far less popular than SFN because SFN’s commentator was pretty quiet unless he was relaying an announcement. While NASA did a great job with their coverage, it seemed at times that they got carried away with cheerleading and forgot that this was a news story too — something that deserved as much information as possible for those following the events online.
Views from the LC-39 Gantry at KSC on a Stormy Night
While waiting out a long hold due to lazy thunderstorms that were lingering too close to SLC-41 to safely launch United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V set to carry the US Space Force’s payload designated as USSF-12, I grabbed a few interesting shots from the nearby launch pads.
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@Charles Boyer, 2022 (CC BY 3.0 US)
The Present and The Future
Three launch pads: on the left in the background, SpaceX is raising a launch tower for Starship. Center, Artemis-1 on its launch pad. Right, in the background, is where SpaceX launches its Falcon-class rockets, including astronauts into Earth orbit.
© 2022 Charles Boyer
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