Photos: Counting Down to the Launch of Artemis II
· The Atlantic
Jennifer Briggs / ZUMA Press Wire / ReutersNASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with the Orion spacecraft atop, stands at Launch Complex 39B on February 2, 2026, as the moon rises behind the vehicle during a wet dress rehearsal.Frank Michaux / NASAThe Artemis II astronauts—(from left) NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen—stand in the white room on the crew-access arm of the mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B as part of an integrated ground-systems test at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on September 20, 2023.Dominic Hart / Ames / NASAPatrick Shea inspects a 1.3 percent scale model of SLS in a wind tunnel at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, in 2016. The tests were designed to determine the powerful rocket’s behavior as it climbs and accelerates through the sound barrier after launch. To also test a new optical-measurement method, Ames engineers coated the SLS model with unsteady pressure-sensitive paint, which, under the lighting, glows dimmer or brighter according to the air pressure acting on different areas of the rocket.Radislav Sinyak / Johnson Space Center / NASAThe Orion crew module undergoes a direct-field acoustic test, where stacks of more than 1,500 speakers were used to expose the spacecraft to the maximum acoustic levels that it will experience at launch. Spacecraft response and sound-pressure data were collected with microphones, strain gauges, and accelerometers.James Blair / NASA / JSCThe Artemis II crew members Victor Glover and Christina Koch participate in crew lunar-observations training in the Orion mockup at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in Houston, on July 16, 2025.Joel Kowsky / NASAA wave breaks inside the well deck of USS Somerset as teams work to recover the Crew Module Test Article, a full-scale replica of the Orion spacecraft, as they practice Artemis recovery operations off the coast of California, on March 27, 2025.Kenny Allen / NASAArtemis II crew members are assisted by U.S. Navy personnel as they exit a mockup of the Orion spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean during a test operation on February 25, 2024.Tony Gray and Kevin O'Connell / NASAA fully functional Launch Abort System with a test version of Orion attached, soars upward on NASA’s Ascent Abort-2 flight test on July 2, 2019, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida. The LAS’s three motors will work together to pull the crew module away from the booster and prepare it for splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean in the unlikely event of an emergency during ascent.Joel Kowsky / NASAThe flags of the United States and Canada are seen on the left shoulders of Orion Crew Survival System suits that will be worn on the Artemis II test flight on January 17, 2026, in the suit-up room of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at Kennedy Space Center.Jamie Peer and Isaac Hutson / NASANASA’s Pegasus barge carries the agency’s massive Space Launch System core stage at the Kennedy Space Center Complex 39 turn basin wharf on July 23, 2024.Frank Michaux / NASATeams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems and primary contractor Amentum integrate the SLS rocket with the solid rocket boosters onto mobile launcher 1 inside High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center on March 23, 2025.Frank Michaux / NASAIn this view looking down in High Bay 3 inside the Vehicle Assembly Building on January 17, 2026, the work platforms are retracted around the Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft in preparation for rollout.Joel Kowsky / NASANASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, secured to the mobile launcher, roll out of the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B on March 20, 2026.John Kraus / NASAThe Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft roll out to Launch Complex 39B on March 20, 2026.Aubrey Gemignani / NASAAn alligator swims in a nearby swamp, silhouetted by a reflection of the Artemis II Space SLS rocket, illuminated by lights at Launch Complex 39B on February 10, 2026.Joel Kowsky / NASANASA’s mobile launcher carries the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft up a slight incline to Launch Pad 39B on March 20, 2026, at Kennedy Space Center.Aubrey Gemignani / NASAThe SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft arrive at Launch Pad 39B on March 20, 2026.Bill Ingalls / NASAOn March 30, 2026, the Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft stand at Launch Complex 39B, ready for final preparations before launch in April.
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