Space Launch System

Catching a ride on Artemis 1 is a miniaturized CubeSat called NEA Scout that will use a thin, aluminum-coated solar sail about the size of a tennis court to propel it towards the smallest asteroid ever to be studied by a spacecraft.

Confident that out-of-bounds engine temperature readings during Monday’s Artemis 1 countdown came from a bad sensor, NASA officials gave the green light Thursday to move forward with another try Saturday afternoon to launch the agency’s giant new moon rocket on an unpiloted test flight from the Kennedy Space Center.

More than two months after a practice countdown for the Artemis 1 launch, NASA has released audio from the launch team after gaining export control clearance. The audio provides a sneak peek of what to expect on launch day.

Former NASA astronaut Doug Hurley visited with Spaceflight Now before the launch of the Artemis 1 lunar test flight. Hurley is a veteran of two space shuttle missions and commanded the first piloted test flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft in 2020. He is now a senior director of business development at Northrop Grumman, supplier of the Space Launch System’s solid rocket boosters.

NASA will make a second attempt to launch the agency’s giant Space Launch System rocket Saturday on a delayed test flight to send an unpiloted Orion crew capsule on a flight around the moon and back, a major milestone in the agency’s ambitious Artemis program.

Engineers fueled the Space Launch System moon rocket for blastoff Monday on NASA’s long-overdue Artemis 1 test flight, but stormy weather, brief indications of a hydrogen leak, trouble cooling one of the four main engines and then a valve glitch forced managers to call off the countdown.

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.