Artemis II gets its first crack at leaving the pad at 6:24 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 1, and the window stays open for two hours. Miss it, and NASA has further tries through Monday, April 6.
The rocket lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On board will be Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, bound for an approximately 10-day trip around the Moon. It is the first Artemis flight with people on it. The technical reality is that Orion’s life support systems have never had humans breathing on them in flight, and this is the test that changes that.
Launch day, hour by hour
Tanking begins the show. Coverage of propellant loading into the SLS starts at 7:45 a.m., with commentary over views of the rocket, and NASA+ picks up the launch itself at 12:50 p.m. Mission coverage runs around the clock on NASA’s YouTube channel, and each briefing gets its own stream shortly before it begins.
After liftoff, the upper stage burns to place Orion and its crew in high Earth orbit. A postlaunch news conference follows at 8 p.m., with Lori Glaze and Norm Knight, director of the Flight Operations Directorate, at the table. The translunar injection burn, five minutes and 49 seconds long, is penciled in for 7:49 p.m., subject to approval from the mission management team. A status briefing is planned for 8:30 p.m. once the crew is pointed at the Moon.
Before any of that, the crew arrives at Kennedy and takes questions from credentialed reporters at 2:15 p.m., with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Canadian Space Agency President Lisa Campbell attending. Mark Burger of the 45th Weather Squadron briefs on conditions, and launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson and Mission Management Team chair John Honeycutt give a status update of their own.
The flyby
The detail that matters most for record-keepers comes on the day of the flyby. At 1:56 p.m. the crew is expected to pass the farthest distance any human has been from Earth, a mark Apollo 13 set at 248,655 miles. Coverage of the flyby begins at 1 p.m. on NASA+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max, Roku and YouTube. Yes, Netflix.
The lunar observation period opens at 2:45 p.m. At 6:44 p.m. Orion goes behind the Moon and communications drop for an estimated 40 minutes. Closest approach to the Moon comes at 7:00 p.m., and maximum distance from Earth two minutes after that. The link is predicted to return at 7:25 p.m. Later in the evening the Moon blocks the Sun from Orion’s point of view, with the eclipse ending at 9:32 p.m.
Coming home
Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean is set for 8:07 p.m. Recovery crews from NASA and the U.S. Department of War will help the astronauts out of the capsule and fly them to a waiting ship. A news conference at Johnson Space Center in Houston follows at 10:30 p.m. NASA said details on the return to Houston will come later.
From Thursday, April 2, daily mission briefings move to Johnson, skipping April 6 because of flyby activities. Orion’s position can be followed at nasa.gov/trackartemis, and members of the public can register as virtual guests. Every time listed is Eastern and, NASA cautions, could shift with the exact moment of liftoff.
