Live coverage: NASA to launch Artemis 2, its first Moon-bound mission with astronauts since 1972

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft stand at Launch Complex 39B on Tuesday, March 31, ahead of the planned launch of Artemis 2. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now

For the first time in more than 53 years, NASA is preparing to send humans beyond low Earth orbit. As soon as Wednesday evening, four astronauts will embark on an a more than nine-day mission with the goal of flying around the Moon and back.

The flight is called Artemis 2 and it’s the first crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft, a key stepping stone for grand plans of a Moon Base and eventually human exploration on Mars. NASA astronaut and mission commander Reid Wiseman leads the quartet, which includes fellow NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

“The vehicle is ready. The system is ready. The crew is ready. And behind this flight stands a campaign: landings, a lunar base, a nuclear propulsion into deep space. That begins, not ends, with what happens on Wednesday,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya on Monday.

“I have complete confidence in this team and the NASA workforce.”

The more than 49-hour-long countdown officially began ticking at 4:44 p.m. EDT (2044 UTC) on  Monday. Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson will give her approval to proceed into fueling the 322-foot-tall Space Launch System rocket at 7:34 a.m. EDT (1134 UTC) on Wednesday.

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage of the Artemis 2 mission beginning about 10 minutes before the poll for fueling takes place. Liftoff is scheduled for 6:24 p.m. EDT (2224 UTC), which is the opening of a two-hour window.

The 45th Weather Squadron forecast an 20 percent chance for a weather violation during Wednesday’s launch window. On Tuesday during a news briefing, Launch Weather Officer Mark Burger said there was a low risk for lightning, but noted that they were watching for the potential for interference from cumulus clouds and strong ground winds.

“The optimistic side of me says that means 80 percent chance of ‘go’ here. Again, isolated showers wandering around, but again, a lot of real estate between those showers, in all likelihood,” Burger said. “We should be able to find some clear air to launch Artemis 2.”

Regarding weather along the rocket’s ascent corridor, he said that conditions heading into the planned launch window are “very much ‘go’,” stating that the risk probability was 9 percent total, which he said was “very good.”

If all goes smoothly with the multi-hour fueling process, the four crew members will begin donning their flight suits — formally called Orion Crew Survival System (OCSS) suits — about 5.5 hours before liftoff. After departing the suit-up room, they will spend a few final minutes, face-to-face with their families, before taking a 30-minute car ride out to the launch pad.

Once they arrive at Launch Complex 39B, a small team called the closeout crew will help them into their Orion spacecraft, which the astronauts named ‘Integrity.’ Onboard is all they need and more to survive and work aboard the the spaceship that they’ll call home for more than a week.

Orion has a habitable volume of 330 ft³ (9.34 m³), which NASA said is analogous to the combination of two small minivans.

After the crew is safely onboard, the side hatches to the crew module and the launch abort system will be closed and sealed sequentially. The closeout crew, which includes one of the backup astronauts for this mission, will then finish stowing their tools and clear the pad less than an hour before flight.

After achieving liftoff, the twin five-segment solid rocket boosters will separate from the rocket’s core stage a little more than two minutes into flight. The SLS rocket’s upper stage — called the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage — will separate from the core stage in the eighth minute of the mission.

20 minutes post-liftoff, the four, 23-foot-long (7 m) solar arrays on the European Service Module (located beneath the crew module) will deploy and begin to provide power to Orion’s four main batteries.

The ICPS will perform its first big burn, which is called a perigee raise maneuver, 49 minutes after liftoff, putting Orion into an elliptical orbit at 1,381 x 115 statute miles. That will be followed nearly an hour later by the apogee raise maneuver, which will put Orion into a high Earth orbit at 43,730 x 0 statute miles.

Nearly two hours after that, Orion will separate from the ICPS and an hour-long manual piloting demonstration will begin. Wiseman and Glover will take the stick and bring the spaceship up to about 10 meters away from the upper stage to demonstrate the dexterity of the vehicle, which will be needed for future docking operations with landers from Blue Origin and SpaceX.

The crew will then be able to get about four hours of sleep before they’re woken up by one more perigee raising burn to close out Flight Day 1 and their return to sleep. At that point, they will be in an orbit of 44,555 x 115 statute miles.

The big decision point will come on Thursday when NASA makes the call on whether the spacecraft and the crew are ready to commit to their journey to the Moon. If so, the main engine on the Orion’s service module will fire for the trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn less than two hours into Flight Day 2.

There are some abort options that would prevent the crew from going out to the Moon, if necessary, but making a u-turn becomes less optimal the further out the crew gets.

Depending on the time and day they launch, they are poised to see parts of the far side of the Moon that humans have never seen directly with their own eyes. Those unique observations will help researchers understand more about the makeup of the Moon and the journey will help NASA and its partners learn more about living in a radiation environment beyond Earth’s atmosphere and protection.

Meet the crew

Learn more about the four individuals who will be the first to live and work onboard an Orion spacecraft.