Moon Mission Archives - Page 2 of 2

January 17, 2026

Artemis II Begins Its Trek To The Launch Pad

SLS began its slow and deliberate journey to Launch Pad 39B from the Vehical Assembly Building (VAB) early Saturday morning 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, with the journey expected to take between eight and twelve hours. At the time of this writing, that journey is still underway and should conclude late this afternoon or early this evening.

Hundreds of space center workers, family members, and guests gathered along the crawlerway to witness the spectacle as the towering white rocket inched past against a clear Florida sky. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and the four Artemis II astronauts were on hand to mark the occasion.

“Wow. LETS GO!!!” Commander Reid Wiseman posted on X alongside a photo of the rocket moving out of the VAB. In a subsequent post, he called the SLS and Orion “engineering art.”

Wow. LETS GO!!! pic.twitter.com/xozFfnJI8c
— Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid) January 17, 2026

Once the rocket reaches Launch Pad 39B, teams will immediately begin connecting ground support equipment, including electrical lines, environmental control system ducts, and cryogenic propellant feeds. Engineers will then power up the integrated systems for the first time to verify everything functions properly with the mobile launcher and pad infrastructure.

A wet dress rehearsal is scheduled for late January or early February. During this critical test, ground crews will load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen into the rocket’s tanks and conduct multiple countdown sequences, including several holds and recycles in the final minutes to validate launch procedures.

Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said a February launch remains possible but emphasized that the timeline depends on the outcome of upcoming testing. “We need to get through wet dress,” she said during a pre-rollout briefing yesterday.

NASA’s launch window opens February 6, with additional opportunities on February 7, 8, 10, and 11. Due to the orbital mechanics governing the mission’s trajectory to the Moon, only about one week of launch opportunities exists each month, followed by roughly three weeks without viable windows.

January 16, 2026

Best Spots To View Artemis II Rollout

The Artemis II rollout is scheduled to begin no earlier than 7 AM ET NASA tomorrow (Saturday, January 17). The four-mile journey from the VAB to Launch Pad 39B should take between 8-12 hours at about one mile per hour, so you’ll have a long window to get a glimpse of the proceedings as they happen.

Best Places To Watch

Playalinda Beach will be ideal since it’s the closest public land to both the VAB and Pad 39B (as close as 3.6 miles to 39B from the parking lots). Lot 1 (the southermost) gives you the best angle toward the crawlerway route.

While the National Park Service has not announced any specific closures related to the rollout, it would be a good idea to call ahead to confirm that Playalinda is open and has not reached capacity. That’s when all the parking lots are full, and if it reaches that level of attendance, new entrants are denied. Also, keep in mind that an entrance fee is required. The best way to pay for that is to visit the NPS website here.

In Titusville

The Titusville waterfront on the Indian River is another great place to see Artemis II emerging and then heading towards LC-39B. The parks are free, there’s plenty of parking, with food and other options nearby.

Space View Park – Free, always open, and directly across the water with views of both the VAB and 39B

Max Brewer Bridge itself offers an elevated perspective if you can access it on foot (often closed to traffic for launches, but rollouts may be different).

Rotary Riverfront Park – a favorite for launch viewers, this easy-in, easy-out location off of US-1 will be a great spot to see Artemis II.

William J. Manzo Memorial Park one of Titusville’s lesser known parks, this location has a great view across the river to the VAB and LC-39B.

KSC Visitor Complex – They don’t appear to be offering special rollout viewing packages, and the VAB obstructs direct sightlines from many spots there anyway, so later in the day may be the best time to try to view Artemis II.

The Saturn V Center is the closest public facility within the complex grounds, but it is unclear if tour buses will be affected by the rocket move. Assuming everything works out and the public can get to the SVC, it will be a nice day after a cool start, so that may be the best option. Enquire at KSCVC for more information — things change fast around Kennedy Space Center and we do not want to mislead anyone by posting old or incorrect info.

Relax, You’ve Got All Day To See This

Since the rollout is a slow, multi-hour event rather than a blink-and-miss-it launch, you’ve got flexibility. About an hour after rollout begins, the rocket is expected to emerge from the VAB, offering the public its first full look at the United State’s first crewed moon rocket in over fifty years. Arriving around 8 a.m. should let you see it emerge and begin the trek to the launch pad. If you arrive at 10am, that’s fine, the rocket will have traveled only part of the way.

January 15, 2026

Boeing and NASA Add Strakes To SLS Core Stage

Red circles identify the strakes in place on the SLS core stage. Photo: Boeing

When NASA’s Artemis II moon rocket rolls out to Launch Complex 39B this weekend, sharp-eyed observers will notice something new on the core stage: four thin metal fins that weren’t there for Artemis I.

They’re called strakes, and they exist because the rocket’s first flight revealed a problem nobody fully anticipated.

After Artemis I launched in November 2022, Boeing and NASA engineers dug into the flight data and found that the Space Launch System experienced higher-than-expected vibrations near the points where the twin solid rocket boosters attach to the core stage. The culprit turned out to be turbulent airflow swirling through the gap between the boosters and the orange core stage during ascent—an aerodynamic nuisance that needed fixing before astronauts climbed aboard.

The fix itself is elegantly simple. Strakes are fin-like structures commonly used on aircraft to manage airflow, but they’d never been added to the SLS core stage. Boeing’s engineering team ran the numbers through wind tunnel tests and computational fluid dynamics simulations, then designed four strakes sized and positioned to calm the turbulence and dampen vibrations for Artemis II and all future flights.

Getting them installed on an already-aggressive schedule required some hustle on NASA and Boeing’s part. “We immediately pulled together a team—the best of the best,” said Brandon Burroughs, who led the strake implementation effort. “The team worked around the clock and even through the year-end break. By working closely with NASA and streamlining processes, we did in weeks what would normally be done in years.”

Before drilling a single hole at Kennedy Space Center, technicians practiced the procedure in Huntsville, Alabama. The strakes were ready to install before the core stage was fully stacked on the mobile launcher—a critical bit of timing that avoided the access headaches that would’ve come once the solid rocket boosters were in place.

It’s a small addition with big implications.

Artemis II will carry four astronauts on a roughly 10-day trip around the moon, the first crewed flight beyond Earth orbit in more than half a century. Every improvement to the rocket brings NASA one step closer to landing crews on the lunar surface—and eventually, Mars.

January 15, 2026

Artemis II Set For Saturday Rollout

NASA’s moon rocket is finally hitting the road.

The agency announced that the fully stacked Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft will begin their four-mile trek from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39B no earlier than Saturday, January 17, with first motion expected around 7 a.m. ET. The journey aboard Crawler-Transporter 2 will take up to 12 hours.

Artemis II Rollout Details

Artemis II Rollout: VAB to LC-39B
Distance	Approximately 4 miles (6.4 km)
Speed	0.82–1 mph (1.3–1.6 km/h) loaded
Total Time	10–12 hours, depending on conditions and stops
Method	Crawler-Transporter 2 (CT-2), a 6.6-million-pound vehicle
Purpose	Transport the fully assembled rocket from the VAB to Launch Pad 39B for wet dress rehearsal and final launch preparations

Teams have been working around the clock to close out remaining tasks ahead of rollout, though the date could shift if additional time is needed for technical preparations or weather.

The rollout marks the beginning of final integration and testing for what will be the first crewed mission beyond Earth orbit in more than 50 years. Once at the pad, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will conduct a final walkdown before launch preparations continue.

A wet dress rehearsal is planned for late January, during which teams will load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellants and run through countdown procedures. The earliest launch window opens February 6, with additional opportunities on February 7, 8, 10, and 11.