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\n\t\t\t\tNASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft are back at Launch Pad 39B, and the crew is in quarantine \u2014 the final steps before the first crewed lunar mission in more than 50 years.\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tNASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft arrive at Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center on March 20, ahead of an April 1 launch attempt. Credit: NASA\/Joel Kowsky\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
NASA is targeting April 1 for the launch of Artemis 2, with additional opportunities through April 6. The agency\u2019s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft completed their second rollout of the year to Launch Pad 39B at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 20, and the four-person crew entered quarantine two days earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs of this moment right now, there are no major issues that we\u2019re working,\u201d said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA\u2019s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, speaking at NASA\u2019s Ignition<\/a> event on March 24. \u201cWe are doing everything according to plan.\u201d<\/p>\n RELATED: When will Artemis 2 launch and what will the mission do?<\/a><\/p>\n The launch date was confirmed after NASA completed the mission\u2019s Flight Readiness Review<\/a> (FRR) on March 12 \u2014 the agency\u2019s final major assessment before launch, in which every team responsible for a piece of the mission reports on its readiness and votes \u201cgo\u201d or \u201cno go.\u201d All teams voted go, and when leaders asked for dissenting opinions, there were none. During a March 12 press conference<\/a>, John Honeycutt, manager of NASA\u2019s SLS Program, described the FRR as \u201ctelling the risk story\u201d \u2014 making sure every group had done its work to assess any and all risk before committing to fly.<\/p>\n Repaired and refreshed<\/p>\n In late February, NASA rolled the vehicle back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to address a helium flow issue<\/a> discovered after the second wet dress rehearsal<\/a>. Engineers redesigned a quick disconnect on the upper stage\u2019s helium line, removing a problematic seal that had restricted the flow and reinforcing the replacement. While the vehicle was in the VAB, engineers also refreshed and recharged<\/a> several of the vehicle\u2019s batteries \u2014 including those for the flight termination system, the upper stage, the core stage, the solid rocket boosters, and Orion\u2019s launch abort system \u2014 and replaced seals on the core stage\u2019s liquid oxygen feed line, which carries cryogenic propellant into the rocket.<\/p>\n NASA initially targeted the evening of March 19 for rollout, but high winds delayed the start by a few hours. Crawler-transporter 2<\/a> began hauling the 11-million-pound (5 million kilograms) rocket, spacecraft, and mobile launcher out of the VAB just after midnight on March 20. The four-mile (6.4 kilometers) crawl to the pad, at roughly 1 mph (1.6 km\/h), took 12 hours.<\/p>\n