Artemis

Even using the most powerful rocket NASA’s ever built, getting the agency’s unpiloted Orion spacecraft to the moon for the Artemis 1 test flight won’t be easy. It will hinge on a complex series of precisely orchestrated deep space maneuvers.

Spaceflight Now took an aerial tour around the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the days before the scheduled launch of NASA’s Artemis 1 moon rocket. These images captured by Walter Scriptunas II show the the powerful moon rocket on its launch pad, plus SpaceX’s ongoing work to ready the spaceport for the huge commercial Starship rocket.

Countdown clocks began ticking Saturday for the maiden launch of NASA new Space Launch System rocket Monday on a long-awaited mission to send an unpiloted Orion crew capsule around the moon and back.

The Orion crew module hatch was closed for launch Thursday morning after technicians at pad 39B completed final closeouts and outfitting inside the spacecraft before liftoff next week on the unpiloted Artemis 1 test flight around the moon.

The 10 CubeSats hitching a ride to deep space on NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket promise new discoveries about the moon, space weather, and asteroids. But some of the small spacecraft will launch with their batteries only partially charged after sitting inside the rocket for more than a year.

European space officials have hailed the importance of NASA’s upcoming inaugural Artemis mission and the vital role ESA is playing in supporting a return to the moon.

NASA began the two-day launch countdown for the Artemis 1 lunar test flight at 10:23 a.m. EDT (1423 GMT) Saturday. Liftoff of the Space Launch System moon rocket remains set for Monday during a two-hour window opening at 8:33 a.m. EDT (1233 GMT).

NASA’s first Space Launch System moon rocket arrived on pad 39B early Aug. 17 after an overnight rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Three instrumented mannequins strapped into seats on NASA’s Orion spacecraft awaiting liftoff on the first flight of the huge Space Launch System rocket will help engineers evaluate the human experience for future astronauts trips to the moon.