New Delays for NASA’s Artemis I Moon Mission

NASAEstablished in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. It's vision is "To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity."” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>NASA has updated the schedule to move the combined Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft out of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Launch Pad 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for testing to no earlier than March 2022.

NASA has added additional time to complete closeout activities inside the VAB prior to rolling the integrated rocket and spacecraft out for the first time. While the teams are not working any major issues, engineers continue work associated with final closeout tasks and flight termination system testing ahead of the wet dress rehearsal.

The mobile launcher for the Artemis I mission, atop crawler-transporter 2, arrives at the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 30, 2020. The agency will roll the combined Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft out of the VAB atop crawler-transporter 2 to Launch Pad 39B at the NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for testing no earlier than March 2022. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Teams are taking operations a step at a time to ensure the integrated system is ready to safely launch the Artemis I mission. NASA is reviewing launch opportunities in April and May.