KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida— On an early Saturday morning, NASA's rocket for the Artemis II mission, designed to transport four astronauts on a lunar voyage, will make its way to the seaside launch pad from its assembly site on Florida’s Space Coast. The transition marks an integral milestone in NASA's return to human lunar exploration.
Transported by one of NASA’s colossal diesel-powered crawler vehicles, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, along with its mobile launch platform, is set to depart from the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center around 7:00 am EST (11:00 UTC). This Guinness World Record-certified heaviest self-propelled vehicle will traverse a four-mile distance to reach Launch Complex 39B, a journey expected to take approximately eight to ten hours.
The rollout is a significant progression for NASA's Artemis II mission, which aims to achieve the first human lunar vicinity travel since Apollo's final lunar landing in 1972. Although the mission will not involve a moon landing, the crew will circumnavigate the Moon's far side, reaching several thousand miles away from Earth and setting a record for humanity's farthest deep-space travel.
The mission will conclude with a record-breaking reentry speed of 25,000 mph (40,000 km/h) over the Pacific Ocean. The four Artemis II astronauts, NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada's Jeremy Hansen, will become the fastest humans in history after the mission, surpassing speed records from the Apollo lunar explorations.
Origin story
The full Moon rocket's journey will commence early on Saturday at a leisurely pace. Post departure from the Vehicle Assembly Building, this 11 million-pound moving structure will travel east before it turns left and ascends the ramp to Pad 39B, providing a view of the Atlantic Ocean.
“We will be at a cruising speed of under one mile per hour,” stated Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s launch director for Artemis II. “It’ll be a little slower around the turns and up the hill.”
Built six decades ago to transport NASA’s Saturn V rockets, the crawler now used to carry the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, was pivotal during the Space Shuttle Program and returns to its initial mission of positioning Moon-bound rockets.
“These are the kinds of days that we live for when you do the kind of work that we do,” remarked John Honeycutt, chair of NASA’s Mission Management Team for Artemis II. “The rocket and the spacecraft, Orion Integrity, are getting ready to roll to the pad … It really doesn’t get much better than this, and we’re making history.”
Live views of the rollout can be watched via a YouTube stream provided by NASA.
Artemis II represents the premiere crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis program, which was named after Apollo's twin sister in Greek mythology. Initiated in 2019, the program builds upon groundwork established over the past two decades.