NASA counted down to T-minus 29 seconds tonight as it prepared for a historic launch that would send astronauts around the moon for the first time in more than half a century.
The run at Launch Complex 39B, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, was known as a wetsuit practice because it involved filling fuel tanks on NASA’s Space Launch System — the 322-foot rocket that launched during the defunct Artemis 1 mission in 2022.
The only major part that was missing was the crew launch area. NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, the Artemis 2 mission commander, wrote in X that he was watching what was happening in Launch Control.
Once NASA reviews the results of the two-day exercise, mission managers will decide whether to green-light the Artemis 2 crew’s 10-day trip around the moon and back. NASA says liftoff could come as early as March 6.
This week’s simulated launch gives NASA an opportunity to test the Space Launch System rocket, Orion crew capsule and ground support systems before an actual launch.
First practice on Feb. 2 was stopped at about T-minus 5 minutes due to a liquid hydrogen leak. Engineers have made repairs to the site to make way for practice replays.
NASA had to pause this evening’s initial countdown in its final minutes to deal with what it called a “booster avionics system voltage anomaly,” but the countdown resumed and continued as scheduled at T-minus 33 seconds. At that point the countdown was paused and reset to T-minus 10 minutes.
It took more than an hour to reconfigure the rocket’s fueling system to another terminal figure. Then the NASA launch team went through an even smoother second countdown, reaching the planned landing spot in T-minus 29 seconds, and then completed the exercise. A news conference about the test is set for 11 a.m. ET (8 a.m. PT) on Friday.
Four members of Artemis 2’s crew are expected to go into isolation this week after nearly three years of training. In addition to Wiseman, the team also includes NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Victor Glover, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
The Artemis 2 flight plan calls for sending astronauts into orbit 8 around the moon and back. The trip will take them 4,600 miles beyond the moon – farther than any human has ever been.
Although Artemis 2 will be history in its own right, the mission’s main purpose is to prepare the way for Artemis 3, which aims to put humans on the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. The campaign is officially scheduled to run through 2027, but industry experts expect the plan to slip.
Several companies headquartered in the Seattle area are interested in the Artemis moon plan. The Redmond-based facility operated by L3Harris (formerly known as Aerojet Rocketdyne) builds thrusters for the Orion spacecraft – and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, based in Kent, is building the Blue Moon lander aimed at putting an Artemis crew on the lunar surface starting in 2030. A new version of Glenrigin is expected to launch the new Blue Origin. of its arrival on the moon sometime in the next few months.
