The Orion spacecraft, which will fly four people around the moon, arrived inside the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida late Thursday night, ready to stack on top of its rocket for launch early next year.
The late-night transfer covered about 6 miles (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 operate during the ongoing government shutdown, which began on October 1.
Continued work could prepare Artemis II for a launch opportunity on February 5 next year. Astronauts Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will be the first humans to fly on the Orion spacecraft, a vehicle that has been in development for nearly two decades. The Artemis II crew will make history on their 10-day journey by becoming the first people to travel to the vicinity of the moon since 1972.
Where things stand
The Orion spacecraft, developed by Lockheed Martin, has made several stops at Kennedy over the past few months since leaving its factory in May.
First, the capsule moved to a fueling facility, where technicians filled it with hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, which will feed Orion’s main engine and maneuvering thrusters during the journey to the Moon and back. 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. A turret-like abort system pulls the capsule away from its rocket in the event of a launch failure. Orion is approximately 67 feet (20 m) tall with the service module, crew module and abort tower integrated together.
The teams at Kennedy also installed four glass panels to act as an aerodynamic shield over the Orion crew capsule during the first few minutes of launch.
The Orion spacecraft, with its Launch Abort System and vegetation panels, were seen last month inside the Launch Abort System Facility at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Image credit: NASA/Frank Michaud
It was time to move Orion to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where a separate team had worked all year to stack elements of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. In the coming days, cranes will lift the spacecraft. Weighs 78,000 lb (35 metric tons)dozens of floors up the VAB’s central corridor, then up and over the beam in the building’s northeast high bay to be lowered atop the SLS heavy lift rocket.