Four astronauts, who are preparing for the Artemis II mission scheduled to go to the moon next year, recently conducted a rehearsal at the Kennedy Space Center. The astronauts, including NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, dressed in orange spacesuits and traveled in crew transport vehicles from the Neil A. Armstrong building to Launch Pad 39-B.

This rehearsal was carried out to demonstrate the normal launch day procedures in preparation for the mission, which could take place as early as November 2024. The Artemis II mission will be the first manned flight on NASA’s powerful Space Launch System rocket, with astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft. The mission is planned as a 10-day trip around the moon, but there are no plans for a lunar landing.

Artemis III mission, which is planned to bring humans back to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972, will feature SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft as the human landing system. However, the Starship spacecraft is still under development and is expected to be ready by December 2025.

Artemis II mission will follow the successful unmanned test flight of Artemis I, which pushed the limits of the Orion spacecraft to ensure the safety of human passengers. The Orion capsule and the European service module for Artemis II are already at the Kennedy Space Center but will not be ready until April. The core stage of the rocket is awaiting transportation from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, while the two solid rocket boosters are being transported by train from Utah.

NASA technicians have begun connecting the four RS-25 engines, which were converted from the Space Shuttle Program, to the base of the core stage. The core stage is expected to arrive in November, and the assembly of the Space Launch System will begin in February 2024 at the Vehicle Assembly Building of the Kennedy Space Center.

Sources:
– Orlando Sentinel
– NASA’s moonbound Artemis astronauts take new ride to launch pad in practice run (2023, September 20) retrieved 20 September 2023 from [source]