NASA's next moon rocket is on the launch pad for testing, and you can follow its progress live.
The agency has a 24/7 livestream showing its Artemis 2 Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at Launch Complex-39B at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. You can check out the livestream on YouTube or in the window below. The rocket will usually be visible no matter what time of day or night, although sometimes fog rolling in from the nearby Atlantic Ocean will obscure the view.
The astronauts went into quarantine on Friday (Jan. 23), which is standard procedure two weeks before a penciled-in launch date. But, as NASA keeps emphasizing, that date could move. SLS arrived safely at Launch Pad 39B after a 12-hour rollout journey on Jan. 17. The rocket still has to go through several checkouts at the pad, including a crucial "wet dress rehearsal," in which the rocket will be fueled and launch operations tested.
NASA aims to complete that fueling test on Feb. 2, just four days before launch. The predecessor Artemis 1 mission took several months to pass this stage, however. Artemis 1 was SLS' debut mission and just the second for the Orion capsule (which went to and from Earth orbit in 2014 on an uncrewed mission atop a different rocket). Artemis 1 required at least four wet dress rehearsal attempts before the agency deemed the rocket ready to launch, but everything eventually went well; it successfully sent Orion to lunar orbit and back to Earth in late 2022.
During a press conference on Jan. 17, Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said the team had implemented several changes in procedures and design since Artemis 1's wet dress rehearsal campaign, which may allow for a smoother simulated countdown this time around.
Artemis 2's 10-day mission will test out SLS rocket and Orion on the first-ever crewed Artemis mission. In fact, the astronauts will spend about a day in Earth orbit doing a detailed rundown of systems before committing to the crucial "trans-lunar injection" that will send them around the moon. The goal is to set up for a moon landing with Artemis 3's astronauts, who are not yet named, in 2027 or 2028.
If Artemis 2 doesn't launch as planned on Feb. 6, backup opportunities are available in February, March and April. NASA has emphasized that it will launch the astronaut quartet only when all systems are ready, as safety comes before any schedule.
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