NASA engineers are poring over data from tests conducted on February 12th as part of the Artemis II vehicle’s pre-flight checkouts. During the tests, operators partially filled the Artemis II core stage liquid hydrogen tank to evaluate newly replaced seals in the propellant loading area.
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.”
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.
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.
| 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.
NASA has published its launch window availability for Artemis II, the agency’s first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years, with opportunities spanning February through April 2026. The Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft are scheduled to roll out from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39B NET January 17th.
The four-mile journey aboard Crawler-Transporter 2 will take up to 12 hours before the integrated launch structure and rocket arrive at their final destination.
After Artemis II is rolled out to LC39B, engineers and technicians will start pad integration tasks, including connecting essential ground support equipment such as electrical lines, environmental control system ducts, and cryogenic propellant feeds. After those tasks are successfully completed, teams will then power up all integrated systems for the first time at the pad.
All windows are 120 minutes, except for March 11th, which offers a slightly shorter 115-minute window.
The published windows reflect careful consideration of lighting conditions, so that Orion is not in darkness for more than 90 minutes at a time post-launch, therefore allowing its solar arrays to keep generating power and the spacecraft to stay within its thermal limits. Dates that would put Orion into extended eclipses are removed from consideration.
Another consideration is that the launch window constraints ensure optimal conditions for tracking cameras and abort scenarios during the critical ascent phase.
NASA notes all dates remain subject to adjustments as the mission progresses through final preparations.
The earliest available launch window opens on February 6, 2026, at 9:41 pm ET, with a 2-hour window. Launch opportunities continue through February 11th, followed by a brief gap, then resume mid-month. Each window in the February series shifts progressively later into the night, with the final February opportunity on the 11th occurring at 1:05 AM EST.
Should weather or technical issues prevent a February launch, NASA has identified windows throughout March and April. The March series begins on the 6th at 8:29 PM ET, while April windows open as early as 6:24 PM ET on April 1st—notably the only daytime launch opportunity in the released schedule, occurring approximately 1.3 hours before sunset.
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