2:14 p.m.
NASA’s Artemis II crew NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, arrived at Launch Complex 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with Orion spacecraft atop stands ready for launch. The opening of today’s launch window is slated for just over 4 hours from now, at 6:24 p.m. EDT.
In the next few minutes, the crew will take the elevator up the pad’s fixed service structure and walk down the climate-controlled crew access arm to the White Room, their final stop before climbing aboard their Orion spacecraft. In this clean, controlled environment at the end of the crew access arm, the closeout crew will assist the astronauts with hatch operations and verify that all safety systems are ready for launch.
Since the late 1960s, pads A and B at Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39 have supported America’s major space programs, with Pad A used most frequently for launches under the Space Shuttle Program. After the retirement of the shuttle in 2011, Pad A helped usher in a new era of human spaceflight as launch pad for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, which returned human spaceflight capability to the United States. Pad B saw the launch of NASA’s Artemis I mission in November 2022 and will continue to be the primary launch pad for America’s efforts to return to humans the Moon.
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