Artemis II Is on the Pad. Moon Launch Is April 1.
History is 4 miles and one countdown away.
On March 20, NASA's 322-ft SLS rocket reached Launch Pad 39B after an 11-hour crawl at just 0.82 mph.
This is Artemis II's
second
trip to the pad. The first ended with a problem no one expected mid-campaign.
A helium fault in the upper stage sent the rocket back to the VAB on Feb 25 — pushing launch from March to April.
At 18M lbs total, Crawler-Transporter 2 crushed the road's river rocks to near sand moving 4 miles to the pad.
Wiseman, Glover, Koch & Hansen — three personal firsts in one crew. First woman, first Black astronaut, first non-US citizen near the Moon.
Artemis II flies ~5,000 miles past the Moon — beyond Apollo. The crew will see the lunar far side that no human has ever seen live.
The launch window opens April 1, 2026 — the first crewed deep-space mission since Apollo 17. 54 years of waiting ends that day.
The rocket is ready. The crew is in quarantine. The countdown to humanity's return to the Moon starts April 1.