NASA says it is preparing to roll its massive 322-foot-tall Space Launch System rocket to the launchpad in Florida as the agency moves closer to launching the first human spaceflight around the moon since the Apollo era.
The Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft are currently inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, where teams are completing final integration work ahead of the 4-mile journey to Launch Complex 39B.
"We are moving closer to Artemis II, with rollout just around the corner," said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. "We have important steps remaining on our path to launch, and crew safety will remain our top priority at every turn as we near humanity's return to the moon."
NASA is targeting no earlier than February for the second-ever launch of the SLS rocket, which will generate about 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff as it begins the Artemis II test flight carrying astronauts from the United States and Canada.
The Artemis II mission comes more than three years after the successful Artemis I launch in 2022, which marked the first full end-to-end test of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. During that uncrewed mission, Orion traveled about 1.4 million miles, entered a distant orbit around the moon, performed multiple close lunar flybys and safely returned to Earth.
