NASA officials say Wednesday launch of Artemis II mission is on track, despite solar activity

The team behind America’s return to the moon will be all business on April Fools’.

At least, as far as Jeff Spaulding knows.

Spaulding, a senior test director for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, told reporters Tuesday that the pranks pulled back in the Apollo days, like the fake cockroach smuggled aboard Apollo 12, are not expected to arise ahead of Wednesday’s planned launch.

“I’m not aware of any pranks that anybody plans to pull on the flight crew or in the launch team itself,” Spaulding said. “I think I’ll just leave it at that. But I’m not aware of any, and I’m hoping that we just stay focused on the launch tomorrow.”

In the agency’s last news conference ahead of the Artemis II launch, Spaulding and Mark Burger, a launch weather officer, said things are looking good for the planned takeoff Wednesday at 3:24 p.m. Pacific time.

Artemis II will carry mankind farther than any launch before, more than 4,000 miles beyond the moon in a looping, figure-eight flightpath measuring around 685,000 miles in total length. The crew aboard will consist of three Americans and one Canadian: Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, who is the lone Commonwealth resident.

The Artemis II mission will be the first crewed mission to travel to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. While the mission will not touch base with the surface, it will be followed by Artemis IV in early 2028, which will bring astronauts to the lunar south pole for the first time ever.

Spaulding said system checks have gone smoothly, including a wet dress rehearsal in which the propellants – super cooled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen – are pumped into the rocket as they will on launch day. Crews will begin loading the Space Launch System for the real deal around 4:45 a.m. Pacific time Wednesday. The process, as well as the subsequent launch, will be livestreamed on the agency’s free streaming platform NASA+ and YouTube channel.

An earlier launch window in February was abandoned after a leak in the hydrogen system was discovered. Spaulding said new seals were installed, and no leaks were visible during the wet dress.

“We feel pretty good about all that,” Spaulding said. “That’s where we would generally be looking at first of all, is right there at the beginning when we transition from slow fill to fast fill on the hydrogen side.”

Burger said he’s optimistic about the weather being fair enough for a launch Wednesday, but there is a 20% chance adverse conditions will delay or halt the launch. Lightning, heavy clouds overhead and wind speeds are the factors he’s keeping an eye on.

“The 20% just refers to the probability of having a violation during the launch window,” Burger said. “That violation could last five minutes, it could last 30 minutes, it could last an hour. In this particular setup, I would imagine that if we get a violation, generally, cumulus cloud would be the most likely candidate.”

Solar flares are another element Burger is considering. The sun has been active this past week, with an X1.4 flare, representing the largest classification, wiping out radio equipment across southeast Asia and Australia Monday.

The trip beyond low Earth orbit means the astronauts and their spacecraft the Orion will no longer be protected by the planet’s magnetic field. High solar activity can pose a radiation risk, disrupt communication systems and cause other damage. Burger said he’s not terribly concerned about another large solar flare in the next 48 hours.

“I’ll tell you that, really, solar forecasting makes terrestrial forecasting look easy,” Burger said. “So of course, the Sun is an entity that has almost a mind of its own.”

Spaulding said the crew and the thousands behind the Artemis II mission are “excited” and in “great spirits.” As a leader in the mission, he said, personally, the moment truly sinks in when the final countdown to liftoff gets inside the minute mark. Getting back to the moon, establishing a moon base and sending humans to Mars is something he’s long worked toward.

“I try to walk every day in the morning, and I look up at the moon quite regularly, thinking about this mission and upcoming missions that are going to be coming,” Spaulding said. “I’m excited to be going to the moon. I’m excited about establishing a presence there.”