{"id":206577,"date":"2025-10-17T13:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/206577\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T13:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:12:09","slug":"orion-spacecraft-arrives-at-vab-ahead-of-stacking-for-artemis-2-spaceflight-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/206577\/","title":{"rendered":"Orion spacecraft arrives at VAB ahead of stacking for Artemis 2 \u2013 Spaceflight Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft, named \u2018Integrity\u2019 by her crew, rolled about seven miles from the Launch Abort System Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 16, 2025. The spacecraft will be the first crewed vehicle to travel to the Moon since Apollo 17, when it launches on the Artemis 2 mission no earlier than Feb. 5, 2026. Image: John Pisani \/ Spaceflight Now<\/p>\n

NASA Orion spacecraft made its penultimate terrestrial roadtrip late Thursday evening when it cruised into the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center. The next time it hits the road will be atop the fully assembled Space Launch System rocket for final prelaunch preparations for Artemis 2 at the launch pad.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft, named \u201cIntegrity\u201d by its four-member crew,\u201d slowly made the roughly seven-mile journey from the Launch Abort System Facility to the VAB, arriving at the entrance to High Bay 4 around midnight (0400 UTC). The trek came almost four years to the day after NASA rolled the Orion spacecraft used on the Artemis 1 mission to the VAB.<\/p>\n

Unlike that rollout though, this transport came with far less pomp and circumstance, given that the U.S. federal government is on day 16 of a shutdown with many parts of the NASA workforce furloughed.<\/p>\n

However, the rollout operation was able to move forward because critical functions related to the Artemis 2, 3 and 4 missions were included in exemptions agreed by the White House for the shutdown that began on Oct. 1.<\/p>\n

During a Sept. 22 mission overview briefing at the Johnson Space Center, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the Artemis 2 launch director, noted that the Orion Stage Adaptor was set to be stacked as part of the rocket in High Bay 3 the week ahead of the spacecraft\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Orion stage adapter connects the upper stage to the Orion spacecraft, isolates the spacecraft from hazardous gases, deploys small science satellites, and will be used in a maneuvering test during the Artemis 2 mission. Image: NASA<\/p>\n

Once Orion is stacked atop the rest of the SLS rocket, that\u2019s when Blackwell-Thompson said the test campaign will really kick into gear. A majority of that work will happen inside the VAB.<\/p>\n

She said while some of work will mimic operations seen during the Artemis 1 campaign, like the End-to-End Comm Test and the Interface Verification Test, there are also some new additions that factor in the astronaut element.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose new tests consist of the Countdown Demonstration Test, which is about our crewed flight. Back in the shuttle days, we had a similar test that was called TCDT: Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test,\u201d Blackwell-Thompson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where we suit up the crew, they come out, we go through our checklist and our countdown. They\u2019ll enter the ship, we\u2019ll get them strapped in, we\u2019ll do comm checks, we\u2019ll do the configuration of the crew module and we\u2019ll count down to inside of terminal count before we have a planned stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"From top left to right, NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Artemis 2 pilot; Reid Wiseman, Artemis 2 commander; CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, Artemis 2 mission specialist, and NASA astronaut Christina Koch, Artemis 2 mission specialist, suit up and walk out of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.
Image: NASA\/Kim Shiflett<\/p>\n

During that stop, Blackwell-Thompson said they will also do an egress demonstration, which will wrap up part one of that testing campaign. Once the Countdown Demonstration Test (CDDT) Part 1 is complete, teams will conduct a test of the flight termination system and begin final vehicle closeouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when all of that is done, we\u2019ll get ready to roll out from the VAB to the pad,\u201d Blackwell-Thompson said, referring to the roughly four-mile journey. \u201cOnce we get to the launch pad, we will make the connections between the Mobile Launcher and the pad. We have a little bit of testing that we will do out there as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those pad-connected tests at Launch Complex 39B involve configuring the emergency egress system, a series of slide wire baskets that would be able to allow the closeout crew and the astronauts to quickly get away from the rocket in an emergency, prior to the arming of the Launch Escape System. Blackwell-Thompson said this is the second part of the CDDT.<\/p>\n

After that it\u2019s time for the wet dress rehearsal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019ll be a full tanking of the vehicle, core stage and upper stage. We\u2019ll get into a terminal count, and again, we will count down inside a terminal count to about the 29-second point and then we will terminate that test,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll go review the data and a few days later, we\u2019ll get into launch countdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blackwell-Thompson said the work at the pad is a roughly 18-day process with a few contingency days built in. The wet dress rehearsal happens near the end of that flow.<\/p>\n

Like Artemis 1, launch countdown itself is a two-day process. Blackwell-Thompson said after the wet dress rehearsal, the vehicle won\u2019t be rolled back to the VAB, barring some major issue that can\u2019t be resolved at the pad.<\/p>\n

This first crewed flight of the Artemis program is set to launch no earlier than Feb. 5 from the Kennedy Space Center. Following previous delays due to ongoing analysis of the heat shield\u2019s performance seen on the Artemis 1 mission, NASA set a goal of launching no later than April 2026 with aspirations to fly sooner than that.<\/p>\n

Teams are still working to nail down the specific launch windows available to them in each month, but generally, they range from four to eight days.<\/p>\n

Depending on exactly when they launch, the four-person crew consisting of three NASA astronauts and a Canadian Space Agency astronaut will spend roughly ten days in the confines of the Orion capsule, blazing a path for future crews to train for missions that will take them back to the Moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

\"\"A full Moon was in view from Launch Complex 39B at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 14, 2022, as the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher, were being prepared for a wet dress rehearsal to practice timelines and procedures prior to launch. NASA\/Cory Huston.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft, named \u2018Integrity\u2019 by her crew, rolled about seven miles from the Launch Abort System Facility…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-206577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}