Space Launch System

Technicians wearing protective self-contained suits loaded toxic hydrazine fuel into the Space Launch System’s hydraulic power units Friday on pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center. NASA is gearing up for a countdown dress rehearsal which could start as soon as April 1.

Howard Hu manages NASA’s Orion program, overseeing developing and operations for the space agency’s new deep space crew capsule. We spoke with Hu before the rollout of the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 1 mission’s wet dress rehearsal.

The first 322-foot-tall Space Launch System moon rocket arrived on launch pad 39B Friday after an overnight trek from the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

NASA’s powerful new moon rocket, standing more than 30 stories tall, arrived on the launch pad early Friday for the first time at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ready for a series of checkouts culminating in fueling test and simulated countdown in early April.

NASA says a faulty memory chip was the cause of a problem that forced technicians to swap out an engine control computer on the first Space Launch System rocket late last year, but the issue is not a constraint for an upcoming SLS fueling test or launch later this spring.

NASA says the first rollout of the Space Launch System moon rocket is planned for March ahead of a key fueling test on a seaside launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, a delay of several weeks to allow more time for work inside the Vehicle Assembly Building.

NASA will announce later this year the four astronauts who will slingshot around the far side of the moon on the Artemis lunar program’s first crew mission, currently scheduled for launch in 2024, the head of the agency’s human space exploration division recently said. The crew is expected to include three U.S. fliers and one Canadian astronaut.

With NASA’s powerful new 322-foot-tall moon rocket fully stacked at Kennedy Space Center, managers said Friday that Feb. 12 is the soonest the unpiloted Artemis 1 mission could blast off toward lunar orbit, a date that hinges on the outcome of a critical fueling test on the launch pad in January.