KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida—The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which will carry four astronauts on NASA's Artemis II mission around the Moon, is scheduled to embark on its journey to the launch pad early Saturday morning on Florida's Space Coast.
The rocket, positioned on top of one of NASA’s diesel-powered crawler transporters, is expected to emerge from the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center at approximately 7:00 am EST (11:00 UTC). The transporter, recognized by Guinness as the world’s heaviest self-propelled vehicle, will travel a distance of four miles to Launch Complex 39B, a journey anticipated to take between eight to ten hours.
This rollout signifies a crucial advancement for the Artemis II mission, which is the first human mission around the Moon since the Apollo lunar landing in December 1972. The mission will involve a crew of four astronauts, who will circumnavigate the Moon at a considerable distance, setting a new record for human space travel from Earth.
The mission is expected to conclude with a rapid reentry at speeds of 25,000 mph (40,000 km per hour) over the Pacific Ocean. The crew, comprising NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen, are set to break the speed record previously established during the Apollo era.
Rolling Out to History
The operation, involving the entire assembled rocket, will kick off on Saturday at a deliberately slow speed. After departing the Vehicle Assembly Building, the 11 million-pound structure will gradually make its way east, eventually taking a left turn and ascending to Pad 39B, which offers a view of the Atlantic Ocean.
“We will be at a cruising speed of under one mile per hour,” explained Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s launch director for the Artemis II mission. “It’ll be a little slower around the turns and up the hill.”
The vintage crawler transporter, originally constructed 60 years ago for transporting NASA’s Saturn V rockets and later used for the Space Shuttle Program, is now being reused to deliver Moon-bound rockets to their launch sites.
“These are the kinds of days that we live for when you do the kind of work that we do,” expressed John Honeycutt, chair of NASA’s Mission Management Team for the Artemis II mission. “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.”
Interested individuals can tune in to live views of the rollout through NASA's official YouTube stream.
Artemis II represents the first crewed flight in NASA’s Artemis program, a program named after Apollo's twin sister in Greek mythology, initiated in 2019. Nonetheless, some foundational elements have been in development for two decades.