Tomorrow April 1st (no April fools) NASA will attempt to launch Artemis II. This is the third attempt this year. Attempts in February ended during wet dress rehearsal due to propellant leaks. The attempt in March ended due to a stuck valve in the upper stage.
For this attempt the countdown clock is rolling towards the first launch attempt at 6:24 PM eastern time. The launch window is 2 hours long.
The mission is a loop around the moon on a free return trajectory similar to Apollos 8 and 13.
The Orion space craft carried aloft by the SLS rocket will end up heading towards High Earth Orbit where it will separate from the upper stage (ICPS) and perform proximity operations (see the orange box on the right) around the ICPS. This gives the crew to check the manual handling characteristics of Orion and practice portions of the maneuvers required for docking on subsequent missions
Following that Orion will perform a trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn to do a loop around the moon. Ending with a splash down near San Diego 9 – 10 days later. This will be the farthest any human has gone into space and should be the fastest entry.
On board will be 4 crew:
Left to right
- Reid Wiseman – Commander
- Victor Glover – Pilot
- Christina Koch – Mission Specialist (first woman around the moon)
- Jeremey Hansen – Mission Specialist (first Canadian around the moon)
NASA blog:
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/03/30/nasas-artemis-ii-launch-mission-countdown-begins/
Weather looks like 80% favorable.
There’s a handful of launch windows for the next several days if tomorrow doesn’t work out.
Wish us luck!