The Orion spacecraft, which will carry four people around the Moon, arrived Thursday evening inside the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ready to be stacked atop its rocket for launch early next year.
The late-night transfer traveled about 10 kilometers from one facility to another at the Florida spaceport. NASA and its contractors are continuing preparations for the Artemis II mission after the White House approved the program as an exception to overcome the current government shutdown, which began October 1.
This continued work could allow Artemis II to be launched as early as February 5 next year. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will be the first humans to fly aboard the Orion spacecraft, a vehicle that has been in development for nearly two decades. The Artemis II crew will make history during their 10-day flight by becoming the first people to travel near the Moon since 1972.
Where are things
The Orion spacecraft, developed by Lockheed Martin, has made several stops at Kennedy in recent months since leaving the factory in May.
First, the capsule was transferred to a refueling facility, where technicians filled it with hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, which will power Orion’s main engine and maneuvering thrusters during the round-trip flight to the Moon. At the same facility, teams loaded high-pressure helium and ammonia coolant into Orion’s propulsion and thermal control systems.
The next stop was a nearby building where the launch abort system was installed on the Orion spacecraft. The tower-shaped abort system would move the capsule away from its rocket in the event of a launch failure. Orion stands approximately 20 meters tall with its integrated service module, crew module and abandon tower.
Kennedy teams also installed four pointed panels to serve as an aerodynamic shield on top of the Orion crew capsule during the first minutes of the launch.
The Orion spacecraft, with its launch abort system and warhead panels installed, was seen last month inside the Launch Abort System Facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux
It was then time to move Orion to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where a separate team worked all year to stack the pieces of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. In the coming days, cranes will lift the spacecraft, weighing 78,000 pounds (35 metric tons), dozens of stories above the VAB’s center aisle, then over the transom to the building’s large northeast bay to be lowered atop the heavy SLS rocket.
