Artemis II Rollout and Mission Overview News Conference - 4K

From left to right, John Honeycutt, Artemis II mission management team chair; Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, launch director, Exploration Ground Systems Program at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida; Jeff Radigan, Artemis II lead flight director, Flight Operations Directorate; Lili Villarreal, Artemis II landing and recovery director in Exploration Ground Systems Program at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida; Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist in the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, participate in an Artemis II mission overview news conference on Friday, Jan. 16, 2025, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of rollout of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39B at NASA Kennedy. The Artemis II test flight will take Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist Christina Koch from NASA, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen from the CSA (Canadian Space Agency), around the Moon and back to Earth no later than April 2026.

What is said in the film

You're looking at a view of NASA's Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, a launch pad ahead of the agency's Artemis two test flight that will send a crew of four astronauts around the moon and back. I'm Rachel Kraft from NASA's Office of Communications. And welcome to our briefing today to preview rollout and the Artemis two mission. We're joined today by several NASA managers here to share more about how those preparations are going for the mission. And they are John Honeycutt, chair of the Artemis two mission management team.

Charlie Blackwell Thompson, Artemis launch director. Jeff Ratigan, lead flight director for Artemis two. Lilly, viral landing and recovery director for The Mission, and Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist for NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. We'll have some opening remarks from each of our participants, and then we'll get into questions and answers. And, we'll take those questions from those here in the room.

And those joining us by phone. And with that, we'll start with you, John. Okay. Thank you. Rachel.

Hey, happy to be here today. You know, these are the these are the kind of days that we live for. And when you do the kind of work that we do, the rocket and the spacecraft, Orion, integrity. Really getting ready to go to the pad and rolling to the pad. You know, this this group of folks to, to my left is as well as many others across the agency are here.

We're here representing a lot of folks that have done a lot of work to get us to where we are today. I'll just say it really doesn't get much better than this. And we're making, making, making history. You know, I was around for Artemis one, and, this one, I think, for you. For us.

And and I know probably for you, too. This one feels a lot different. Putting crew and crew on the rocket and taking taking the crew around the moon. This is going to be our first step toward, sustained lunar presence on the moon. So ten days for astronauts going further from Earth than any other humans ever traveled.

We'll be validating Orion spacecraft life support navigation crew systems in the really harsh environments of deep space. And that's going to pave the way for future landings. Talk a little bit about the mission management team. That's a group of of 15 core members from across the enterprise that are responsible for the overall risk management associated with the mission. Myself, as well as the members of the mission management team, have taken part, in every one of the mission reviews and all the risk assessments that we've done, to date so far.

Right now, the mission manager, which is different from me. He he's running. He's running the show relative to the overall moon to Mars. Mission management for Artemis two. And he's, he's the deputy for me is, mission management chair.

And then, when we when we get to the minus two day mark, all that, all of his responsibility relative to managing the mission will get turned over to me and the mission management team. Once we're flying, the MMT is going to be providing strategic direction, for the for the operation teams. Whether whether it be Charlie and her team leading up to launch or Jeff and his team for the, in-space operations, shortly after, we launch and and get into the proximity operations demonstration on launch day. We'll begin to meet daily, at JSC throughout the mission. Now, as chair of the MMT, I got one job, and it's a safe return of re and Victor and Christina and Jeremy.

I consider that a duty and a trust. And it's one I intend to see through. Alongside the MMT deputy chair. Who I mentioned earlier in the entire MMT. So that end, I will tell you, we're going to fly when we're ready.

From launch to the mission days to follow the crew safety is going to be our number one priority. Thank you. Rachel. Charlie. Hi.

Well, good morning, everybody. I'm Charlie Blackwell Thompson. I'm the Artemis launch director. It is wonderful to be in this room. Because when I'm here with all of you, it means that there's a milestone upon us and we are approaching a big one for us as it relates to Artemis two tomorrow.

You can see from the the picture that was put up earlier, and I think we have another graphic. All of the platforms in the vehicle assembly building are retracted. We are on track for our roll out tomorrow morning. First motion is planned for 7 a. m.

, and many of our teams will be coming back in, on third shift to make those final preparations, and and get ready, to roll. Like I said, at first motion, 7 a. m. takes us a little while to get out of the building. But about an hour after we get that first motion, you'll begin to see this beautiful vehicle cross over the threshold of the VAB and come outside for the world to have a look.

We'll, retract the crew access arm. That'll take a little bit of time. About 45 minutes or so. And, and then we'll pick up and we'll head out on that four mile journey to the launch complex. 39 B will be at a cruising speed of just under one mile per hour.

It'll be a little slower around the turns and up the hill. And, that journey will take us about 8 to 10 hours to get there. Once we get out to the pad will begin and get hard down. We'll begin our, our connects to the facility. Connecting our commodities, getting through our validations, getting connected back up to the firing room.

We'll get prepared to power up the elements. We have some crew access arm swings that are going to happen out at the pad when we first get out there. We've got emergency egress system to configure. We'll get ready for our pad testing, which which is call pad P said it's a lot of our RF checkouts that we do. And and we'll do our booster servicing and we will get ready for wet dress.

We do have a walk down with the crew called CTD T part two. It's a walk down of the emergency egress system once it's configured. We'll take care of that somewhere. In and around our preps for a wet dress is a plan right now, based on the crew's schedule. And wet dress will fully tank that vehicle.

We'll go through all of our, all of our tanking ops. Will go through our day of launch configuration and provided everything's nominal. Launch director. Myself, I'll make the decision to send the closeout crew out to the pad, and we will do the final closeouts for launch. We'll go through our terminal count, and we have a planned cut off at T-minus 29 seconds.

We'll take some time after wet dress will review the data, and, and then we'll set up for our launch attempt. Launch day will be pretty similar to wet dress. Will be two big differences. One is that we're going to send the crew to the pad, and the other one is we're not going to stop at 29 seconds for a planned stop. So, that's a little bit about our road to wet dress.

What's entailed in wet dress again? Launch. Launch will come along after that. We talked about, I think, at our prior briefing, a little bit about our countdown. Leveraged off the Artemis one countdown.

I do have a couple other changes in our holds in the countdown. We have three planned for Artemis. Two. And, you know, just like we do on launch day. Right?

Part of launch. We'll get into our terminal count. We'll countdown. As I said, don't plan to stop at 29 seconds. Planned to go all the way to t0.

We'll get down to core stage engine, start inside of six seconds, six, six, six seconds. Booster ignition and lift off. And, at that point in time, I'll hand off to the ascent flight director, just like I'm going to do today. When I hand off to my colleague here as part of the briefing. Mr..

Jeff Wright again. Thanks, Charlie. It's a great day to be here talking to you all. You know, over mission control, of course. We're doing our final simulations.

Getting ready. The crew has undergone all of, their final training, and, is wrapping things up. You can see in the video here that, as Charlie mentioned, we get liftoff, and then the core stage, is and boosters are going to take us to orbit, and, it's going to be a monumental day. We're really looking forward to it. Let's see.

So I will talk through a little bit of, just an overview of the mission. Of course, we'll get, the boosters, jettisoning there a couple minutes into launch, and then the core stage will, boost, the upper stage icecaps and the Orion spacecraft into orbit. At that point, we'll actually, separate from the core stage and, then go ahead and deploy the Orion solar arrays, setting ourselves up, into a low-Earth orbit to start. We'll spend a couple hours in low-Earth orbit, and then the, upper stage will do the apogee raise burn. That will take us into a higher Earth orbit, where we'll spend about 24 hours checking out the Orion systems, life support systems, crew systems, ensuring everything's ready.

Along the way, we're going to do, prox ops demo and, see, once, I think once this video, completes, we'll cue the, the ops demo video, and, the crew's going to get a chance to fly the Orion spacecraft for the first time around the upper stage. And, that's going to be great for us. I mentioned the crew readiness. You know, their undergone all of their training, and, you know, I read Victor, Jeremy and Christina. They're all ready to, to get on the rocket, and, and and get on with the mission.

You know, it's one of the interesting things. I don't think they can get enough training. You know, you'll always want more to the point where we're actually installing. I think they're, they're cockpit in quarantine, so they'll be able to do some last minute training. But, you know, from my perspecti Here you can see a video of, the prox ops demo of what we're going to do.

We're actually going to separate. We're going to turn Orion around, and then, the crew is going to pilot the spacecraft around the upper stage. The. This is what is going to give us data to ensure that we can dock on future flights. We're all looking forward to being able to dock, with the Starship in the future or, a, a blue, lander.

And, on our Nimbus two, we're going to ensure that all of our models, all of our systems work successfully to be able to do those future docking. As we're in that higher orbit and doing a check out. Let's see, after we get, into that higher Earth orbit and we do the checkouts. Of course, we'll consult with, Mr. Honeycutt and the mission management team.

Make sure all systems are go for, for the trans lunar injection burn. And we'll take the crew to the moon. So let's see if we can. Q the next video, please. It takes three days to get to the moon, and, you know, the crew along the way is going to be doing some additional, more detailed check out to the spacecraft will ensure that we've got a good, healthy spacecraft before we leave Earth.

But then, of course, there's a test flight. We want to put Orion through its paces. And then as we fly by the, the far side of the moon here, the crew is going to spend a day in lunar observation. So they're going to, you know, basically spend, the day giving their observations on the far side of the moon, which, hasn't been seen, you know, parts of it hasn't been seen by human eyes before. So that'll be a great opportunity.

And of course, they're going to take a fair amount of video and, you know, just have those observations. I will I will caution you that they're a long way from Earth, and signals are, a little weak at that point. So we will get some video down. But, the real the real high definition video will be post-flight when they come back. Finally, they're going to, you know, head on back home here and get ready for entry.

It's, it's a long mission. Three days there, a day around the moon and three days back, all of that to say that we have to set them up for entry successfully, right? Our our, you know, one job is, as Mr. Honeycutt said, is to bring the crew home safely. We need to hit the right entry interface corridor and bring them home.

And, once we do that, then, the Orion will, split into two. We'll have the CME and the service module come off. The crew module, which will then, come through reentry. And, you know, we've got a whole series of parachutes, that, slow down. We're going much faster coming from the moon than we are in low Earth orbit.

And so we need to slow down a little bit more, and it takes more parachutes to do that. And so here we've got a video of, what the reentry sequence looks like. Of course, the crew is protected by the heat shield, and, we'll go through a blackout period where we can't talk to them and then come out the other side. Underneath the parachutes. Let's see.

I do want to mention this. This is a test flight, and, there's things that, are going to be unexpected. You know, I think we we've prepared for those as much as we can. And we're very much looking forward to, flying this mission successfully with the crew and learning what we need to on Artemis two, moving forward. And, and paving the road for future missions.

Let's see. Next, I'll hand it over once. Once the video here completes and the, the crew gets down safely. Of course, we hand things over to Lily, and, her recovery team to go pick them up. Thank you.

Jeff, if you can tell, just a little tiny bit nervous. So I want to really talk to you about recovery. And, I represent such a wonderful team, so bear with me. My name is Lily, and I'm the NASA Artemis landing and recovery director. I'm going to walk you through the process of how we will safely recover the Artemus to crew and the Orion spacecraft once they return from their trip around the moon.

Within 24 hours of splashdown, we will be positioned in the Pacific Ocean within miles of the targeted recovery site, which is normally off the coast of San Diego. The recovery ship will approach the landing zone, and a team of Navy divers and in small boats will deploy from the ship into the open water prior to splashdown. A team from Johnson Space Center will map where the elements are jettison from Orion. Such as the forward bay cover, the drogue parachutes and the mortars. And this is to make sure that our boats and helicopter support and recovery stay clear of all this debris.

The divers will be the first to approach Orion, and they will conduct assessments of the air and water surrounding the capsule to make sure that it's safe to approach and help the crew exit Orion. After ensuring the area is safe, they'll open the Orion hatch and help the astronauts from their seats to a large fleet of a raft. Call the front porch. Once all the four helicopters. I'm sorry.

Once all the four astronauts are on the front porch, we will tow the capsule away from the front porch, and the team will wait. Pick up from the Navy helicopters, which are deployed from the recovery vessel. Two helicopters are going to rotate, picking up all the four crew members before they're return to their recovery ship. Within a few minutes of each other. Once the crew has exited the helicopters, they're going to proceed straight to the ship's medical bay to undergo, routine medical, checkups.

We expect to recover the crew and deliver them to the med bay within two hours of splashdown. With the crew safely out of the capsule and, in tandem, we're going to be recovering the, the capsule. Teams are going to work on towing the Orion into the, well, deck of the ship. Pretty much, similar to how we did that during Artemis one. The navy divers will ensure that a system of lines, are connected to the capsule.

To ensure that we can help tow the Orion vehicle onto this ship. When Orion is close to the ship, an additional line is going to be attached to, a pneumatic winch that's inside the ship. And that's how we're going to pull the vehicle into the capsule. Once Orion is safely inside the, the ship, we will start making our return, back to Naval Base San Diego. Depending on our distance or when we land.

The Artemis through crew will either fly off the ship, back to shore, or they will ride, with the recovery vessel back to San Diego. Once we arrive, back to shore, the astronauts are going to depart to go to Houston while the NASA recovery team will complete some post. Splashdown processing activities of Orion before we transported back to Kennedy Space Center. Some of those tasks that we're going to do is, perform all the initial assessment of the capsule or remove some science payloads that need to be expedited, return back to their original NASA center. And then we'll be ready to transport it back.

I do want to take a moment to say that, we want to thank our partners, from the U. S. military who are supporting our Artemis recovery operations. Without them, we really could not have done that. And they have been there with us since the early days of human spaceflight.

Our joint NASA, Navy and Air Force team, we've been training for several years together to ensure we have a seamless recovery of Orion and the Artemis two crew. We had a very successful recovery of, the Orion spacecraft during Artemis one, and we feel confident that through our testing and training, along with the Navy and the other collaborations that support us, we will make Artemis two just as successful. Thank you. Some thanks. And thanks, Lillian.

I just wanted to say, you know, being nervous is just one form of extreme excitement. And I hope, I hope that you can all tell how excited we are right now. I did want to start by saying, what a privilege it is to be here and an honor it is to be a part of the Artemis two team. And to echo some of John's words earlier. That's not just our colleagues here at this table, but the thousands of people who have worked on Artemis two, over the years, including you all.

Thank you for being here to to help us relay this information and tell this story. I have a song that I like to play, often as I approached, vab vehicle assembly building, for big events. It's the kind of song that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck or on your arms. I'll confess, I played that song this morning. Because this is a very historic moment.

An exciting moment. We're rolling out the integrated SLS and Orion for a flight that will carry four of our friends. Our NASA family members around the moon and bring them safely back to Earth. Our missed two is a test flight. It truly is exploration.

There will be a number of firsts, that will be proving out on this flight. And I like to say that during exploration, science is our toolbox for survival. With that in mind, I'm excited to present to you our Artemis two integrated research campaign. Which involves activities across biology, human research, space weather research, and also some planetary geology. Our integrated campaign is designed to help unlock more time for science on future missions, by minimizing crew time spent on other activities.

And increasing crew and support team efficiency on the science tasks themselves, all while learning how to best thrive in the deep space environment. During this flight, we will learn how the spacecraft behaves. Through our research campaign, we will also learn how we human beings behave in that same environment. The combination of these two things will help us optimize our time in future missions. We'll be flying a payload called avatar, which stands for a Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response.

Basically, avatar enables us to mimic individual astronaut organs. And Artemis two will mark the first time that these types of devices have been tested outside the Van Allen belts or away from the ice. We will test if we can use these astronaut avatars as tools, for measuring and predicting our human response to deep space stressors. To evaluate this, scientists will compare avatar data with space station findings we've already collected, as well as with samples taken from our crew, both before and after the flight. For NASA, avatar could help inform measures, to ensure crew health on future deep space missions, including personalizing medical kits, for each astronaut, for citizens here on Earth that could lead to advancements in individualized treatments for diseases such as cancer.

We'll also be flying, an activity called Archer Artemis research for crew Health and readiness for the Archer study crew members will wear movement and sleep monitors, called anti-gravity devices, before, during, and after the mission. These wristband monitors will enable us to study real time health and behavioral information for the crew members, and help scientists study how crew member sleep and activity patterns are affected. And how overall health and performance is affected. The study will evaluate how our crew members perform individually as a team throughout the mission, including how easily they can move around within the confined space of their capsule. We'll also measure a set of immune biomarkers for the immune biomarker study.

Crew members will supply saliva samples through the flight. And they've done so on Earth and will do so when they return for comparison. Scientists will gain insights into how the astronauts immune systems are affected by the increased stressors of the radiation environment, isolation and distance away from Earth during deep space flights. We'll also extend a set of activities to the moon called Space Flight standard measures. Astronauts will collect a set of measurements spanning multiple physiological systems to provide a comprehensive snapshot of how spaceflight affects the human body.

We will conduct also physiological assessments, including testing their head, eye and body movements before, during and after the spaceflight, and that will be compared with blood samples that are taken before and after the flight, as well. As soon as possible after landing, the crew members participate in basically an obstacle course to see how quickly they can function. Soon after going through a gravity transition. A few days later, though, conduct a simulated spacewalk and we'll do various tasks in a pressurized, spacesuit again to investigate how quickly again, they can adapt to that train. That change in gravity that prepares us for landing on the moon and eventually down the road, going to destinations such as Mars.

During the flight, we will make measurements with a suite of radiation sensors. You may remember that we've, did something similar during Artemis one. Crew members will keep detectors in their pockets of their suits so that we can measure their individual exposure, in real time during the flight. Two other sets of sensors will also be placed in Orion. One will monitor radiation at different shielding locations in the spacecraft so that we can gain a better understanding of what the radiation, protection, does for our crew members on board.

We will also be partnering with the Germany Aerospace Agency, or DLR, to provide sensors similar to what they provided during Artemis one, and the crew will deploy these around the Orion again to give us a comprehensive view of that radiation environment. Last but not least, a very exciting aspect to it is, the ability to observe the moon. So you've heard about a little bit about that already. And if we could cue up our first image here. Our crew will take time to observe the moon as they pass around the far side of the moon.

Far side is the side of the moon that we never see from here on Earth. The moon will look about like holding a basketball at arm's length to them. From the Orion. And if we can cue up the second image as well. Now, just to give another look here, depending on when the mission launches and the final flight path, it's possible they'll see parts of the moon that they that never been viewed by human eyes.

All of the Apollo missions launched, for the landing to occur in the early lunar morning. A lunar day includes 14 days of sunlight, 14 days of darkness. So basically, the crew that we're flying around the moon all saw the same lighting conditions. So this could be a very unique opportunity to see. The moon will be asking them to look for things like albedo differences, variations in, the grayscale that human eyes really can detect.

In addition to their observations, which they'll be communicating back to the Earth, our science support teams will conduct their own test flight of sort here on the ground. Testing out how our support teams work, to make sure that we can best support them when they actually go land on the moon during Artemis three and beyond. One last piece to our Artemis two science activities includes the deployment of four international CubeSats. Can we go ahead and queue up that image? Artemis two mission has provided us with the opportunity to deploy four CubeSats.

Those are basically shoebox sized, payloads that essentially act as their own spacecraft. Once we deploy them, our partners in Argentina, Germany, Korea and Saudi Arabia are all partnering with NASA to take advantage of the opportunity that we have with Artemis to fly, their own CubeSats. Each has its own objectives. But in general, all of the CubeSats are conducting complimentary space weather measurements to the types of research that NASA's doing. So we're excited to provide this opportunity to our partners as we lead the way in space exploration and exploration of the moon.

So real quick to conclude here, our integrated research campaign for Artemis two builds upon what we learned in Artemis one, and it sets the stage for successful exploration of the moon and ultimately on to Mars. Our campaign will help us understand the space weather that will face during future lunar missions. How to observe the moon and communicate with the support teams here on Earth, and in general, how we will react to survive and thrive in that deep space environment. Therefore, I like to say that Artemis two science is the science of us. Artemis two science is the science of humankind and how we will act as we continue to press the boundaries and explore in deep space.

Thank you very much. Back to you, Rachel. All right. We'll go ahead and take questions. For those on the phone, you can get into the question queue by pressing star one.

We will, go around here into the room first. Please wait for the mic. And, let's start here with Marcia Dunn. Oh, hello. Marcia Dunn, associated press for Charlie.

Given a fueling test on or around February 2nd that is really tight by NASA's standards to have a fueling tank test and then go right into a launch is the beginning of the February wet February window even feasible given a February 2nd launch? Tanking test? And, how perfectly does that test have to go for you to make any days in the February window? You you we need to get through wet dress. We need to see what lessons that we learn as a result of that.

And that will ultimately lay out our path toward launch. With a, with a wet dress that is, without significant issues. If everything goes, to plan, then certainly there are opportunities within February, that that could be achievable. Yeah. Just quickly like, I mean, are you are you already just hoping to get to the end of the window at this point or, or the first few days, the window even possible at this point?

I think wet dress is really the driver to that and how it goes. It would be it would be hard to say that you, that you could not I mean, we we do the wet dress early in, February. You're going to need a little bit of time to go look at the data, but certainly it will. It will be the driver toward LP 17 opportunities. Okay.

We'll go behind. So, Harwood, you know, good. Harwood. CBS news, two quick ones, one for Jeff. I realize you guys don't have a launch date yet.

Like Charlie was talking about, but there's at least a chance that you could be launching crew 12. While the Artemis two mission is underway, is there a minimum separation you would like to see between one launch and the other? What are some of the issues you have to deal with if you've got simultaneous missions? And maybe for John, you know, on the US, we don't have the insight you guys have, but this whole point of counting down to this huge launch with with Artemis two and then crew 12, I mean, it almost seems like there's a rush. You know, people that aren't involved in what you guys do might think, well, why is there such a big rush when you've got this other mission?

You got to get to the space station? And doesn't that kind of reflect some of the lessons from the Challenger Commission and Cabe about being in a hurry to get flights off, and why why is this case different from that, if that makes any sense? Thanks. So I'll take a start. I, I, I, I will say this is, this is not a rush and I actually take quite an issue with, with you using that word.

That's not where we're at right now. Right. We are preparing to, to launch Artemis two. You know, as Charlie mentioned, we're working towards wet dress. I know the agency's preparing to launch crew 12.

There's a lot of preparation going on, but there are constraints, right? We have the Tejas network to work through. We have the various launch pads, the the missions. Right. It's not prudent for us to put both of those up at the same time, but we also have to ensure that both of them are ready to go, because you guys have been in the space business long enough to know that we may run into an issue, and the last thing we want to do is, is make a decision too early and then lose an opportunity, right?

That that would not be responsible of us. So we need to keep pressing with both missions. We need to ensure we're doing that at the right speed, and we're looking at the right technical constraints. And then, you know, as we get closer, either the decision will will come about because the hardware is talking to us and we have something that we need to go deal with, you know, or we'll we'll have to pick one. But, that that doesn't mean we should stop preparing for either mission right now.

But we need to do that at the right pace. Let me, let me let me address the second part to Bill's question. You know, Bill, part of my job is, as MMT chair, is to just watch out for what you just said. We go through numerous, training simulations with Charlie and her team, with Jeff and his team. And I think I've got a good eye for launch fever, and I think, views that, probably more than I would like to during some of these simulations, because I sense that some of the team needs to take it as a learning opportunity.

So with with that to with that said, you know, the agency's looking at when, when to launch the next crewed station and we're going to do our job to be ready to go fly. And I'll reiterate what I said in my opening remarks, I'm not going to tell the agency that I'm ready to go fly until I think we're ready to go fly. Now, it's not totally my decision, but I'll have an input up through my boss. Capable here in the front for John and Charlie. I'm James from channel six, our local reporter.

So building off of Marcia's question, Artemis one took eight months from roll out to launch. So can you talk about the lessons you learned the first time through this process that makes you confident that February could be feasible? I can certainly talk about the lessons that we learned during the Artemis one launch campaign, white Dress and launch campaign. You know, one of the things that we that we learned and we worked our way through was, first off, it was a brand new vehicle. And so, as you know, we had we had some challenges through the wet dress, first with, the lox loading and making sure that we had the, it the loading con ops that we started with and the one that we ended up with were slightly different.

Right. And that had to do with the fact that we were using some amount of legacy hardware. And we found that as we regulated the LOX pump as an example, in our first two wet dresses, that if you think about having a single stage and an upper stage and you have that piping that goes up the tower as you regulated that pump and it slowed down, you would get some some warm lox that would fall into that, fill stream of the core stage. And so we had some trouble getting to the right inlet temperatures there. Took us a couple of tries to figure that out.

Then during Wet Dress three, we had some issues, with some hydrogen leaks. Right. Hydrogen leaks. And, so we worked our way through that. We made some modifications to our ground plates.

We changed our, the way in which we loaded hydrogen and, and we, we got through our wet dress campaign and, and then we had a, we had an we had a issue with the replenish valve on the launch attempt. Launch attempt number three, where we finally launch. Right. We sent a red crew out to the pad, and we worked our way through that. So if I were to kind of step back from that and say, what's that biggest lesson that you learned?

Well, the first one is on the LOX side of things. We learned how to load. We we learned how to change our con ops for that were utilizing the same Khan ops. Once we made those changes and we we worked our way through, launch countdown, attempt number one. And number three, we use that same, philosophy in Khan ops for Artemis one work successfully.

And that's what we plan to use again. So that was a big lesson learned. The other lesson learned, on the hydrogen side of things, we made some changes to that interface between the flight plate and the ground plate. We made some changes during, our Artemis one campaign to improve that so that we did not have leaks where you have the flex hoses and the connections on the back of the plate. We saw very good performance during the, launch countdown.

Number three for that. The interface between what we call the cavity, where those plates come together. We saw some hydrogen leaks there. We learned that the way in which we loaded and the flow rates, the temperatures, the pressures have a whole lot to do with, the leakage that we saw within the cavity. And so we modified that, and we were able to manage that through launch countdown number three.

We had the issue with the replenish valve. We went and we made a modification post Artemis one to that valve, and we tested it, with cryo for our, the, the, the, replenish time frame with as many cycles as we would expect to have during Artemis two. So, so why do we think that we'll be successful in, Artemis two is it's the lessons that we learned, right? Artemis one was the test flight, and we learned a lot during that campaign. Get into launch.

And the things that we learned relative to how to to load this vehicle, how to load logs, how to load hydrogen, have all been rolled in to the way in which we intend to load the Artemis two vehicle. Now, what's new for Artemis two? Well, Orion's got some new systems on board. They've got a new ecosystem. We've got the crew interface piece of this, and we have tested those things offline to ensure that, you know, they're not they're not influenced by the cryogenic environment of tanking, but they are used in day of launch, and they have to be used, in accordance with our launch countdown in that critical timing.

And so we've gone through and we've done a countdown demonstration test. We did a seated crew test, before we even got to the, the VAB. And so we've taken this incremental approach to the testing for the new systems. And, and so I believe that will be ready for, for wet dress again. We'll see.

This is our second hardware build for the core stage. So, you know, we'll see how it performs. We we don't have the benefit of a grain run. And and so but we believe all of the lessons that we've learned from Artemis one, we have used that countdown in that philosophy as our building blocks for Artemis to. Okay, we'll actually go to a couple of questions from the phone.

We'll start with Lauren Grush of Bloomberg. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my question. I'm just wondering if you can maybe walk us through the major technical checkouts that will need to take place once you get to the launch pad ahead of the wet dress rehearsal? And is there anything that you're keeping an eye on that you think could have a significant impact on the schedule?

Or is everything moving as smoothly as you'd like leading up to now? So I'll take that one. The things that happen once we get to the pad, one of the first things that happens after we get to the pad we get connected is we'll do some crew access arm swings. That is, about a day or so after we get there. Of course, the first part after we get to the pad is just getting all the connections, all the validations, getting tied back to the firing room, getting ready to power up the individual, elements.

And, and so that is something that, you know, you never want to say. That's something that is routine because you can have hardware that that fails at any time. But but I would say that's something that we, we did a number of times through Artemis one. There are not substantial changes to that. We will get into our crew module work.

There is some unique work that we did not have to do during Artemis one, because we didn't have all the crew systems we have late. So we have other things that we that we have to do. We're going to power everything up. All the elements will get into pad set, mostly RF testing there. We tested all these systems in the Vehicle Assembly Building, but it's not in the RF environment of the pad.

And so we'll go through and we'll do all of that. Check out we load the boosters again when there's some weather dependencies there. So we'll certainly keep an eye on on the weather. Luckily we're not trying to do it in the summertime when you have lots of thunderstorms, so makes it a little bit easier this time of year. There's nothing in particular through the whole pad flow that I would look at and say, you know, this is the thing that that is the driver, to wet dress, right?

All of the work has to get done. We have incrementally tested all of this offline or in the integrated environment of the VAB. And, and now it's just getting out to the pad and tests and those pad interfaces, that launch pad environment with the RF. I mean, wet dresses is the the big test at the pad. That's the one to keep an eye on.

I guess if you're watching one and you say, which one is the driver, that's the driver to launch. So that's the one. That's the one to watch until we get to launch day. Okay. We'll take another question from the phone and then we'll come back here into the room.

Next we have Jackie Waddles with CNN. Hi, folks. Thanks so much for doing this. So question for Mr. Honeycutt on the heat shield.

I'm curious, do you expect the heat shield to play a big role in flight readiness review or this risk assessment? Where do you personally stand on that? And then kind of on that line of thinking, just for clarity, who exactly is giving the final go for launch? Like, does this need to be a unanimous decision within the MMT, or do Jared or Ahmed have final say? Just some insight into that process would be wonderful.

Thank you so much. Yeah. So, yeah, for the for the second question, Charlie does her poll and I'm part of that poll, so I'm, I'm a small I'm a small piece of that. And I do not have to have consensus from the MMT, to make my decision relative to giving her my go or no go. I would like to have conciseness.

I'll tell you, a lot of times in our Sims, we, we have complicated problems that aren't black or white. And so, we do have varied opinions across the team, but at the end of the day, it's up to me to manage, the decision that we make and and send it forward to Charlie, relative to the heat shield. You know, we started that work back when I had my old job, before I got this job, and and so I was, I was paying attention to it then, but even more so now. We're changing, and I'll, I'm going to pass it to Jeff on this in just a minute. But just from my perspective, I think we've done the work, the analysis and the testing to show that we're in good shape for for the mission, for the mission profile that Jeff and his team had planned.

You got to. You want to add anything, Jeff? So what? I'll say is, you know, through the testing that we've done after Artemis one and, the work that we've done here on the ground, we understand the limitations of the heat shield on our items, too, and it's incumbent upon us to fly within those limitations. So things that we're that we've changed, right?

We've we've changed the entry profile so that, we're flying a profile that the heat shield, can handle. And, we're also ensuring that we launch on a day where the demands of the heat shield are lower. And so, you know, really, that turns into a range requirement, to, to fly, you know, not the, the 4000 miles of entry that we flew on Artemis one, but the 1775 miles of entry that we're flying on, Artemis two. And so, you know, the the heat shield. Yes.

You know, we we understand there's some limitations with it. And so from a mission design perspective, we're making sure that we fly within those limitations. And that's how, you know, we're going to keep the crew safe. We're going to make sure that we're, staying within the bounds of the hardware. And I think, you know, as John mentioned, you know, the heat shield is being, I don't want to say redesigned, but it's being updated for Artemis three to try and get back to that longer range requirement, that we'll be able to meet for those future Artemis missions.

Before Artemis two. Of course, we've we've got that, that lower range, which is, which is why we have, you know, fewer, fewer launch opportunities, you know, that we're making, you know, Charlie's life a little bit harder by, by not having as many days we can launch on. But that's the right thing to do to keep our crew safe. Okay, let's go here, to Irene, thanks very much, Irene Klotz. With aviation week and space technology, for, Jeff and then also for John.

Obviously, do you hope to not test the launch abort system, but in case it is needed, could you kind of run through some of those scenarios and what you've, trained for, what is kind of possible, what is still like areas that perhaps are not covered. And, for John, what's the overall risk, for this mission, for the crew? And is it, that risk still more for launch or at this point, is reentry equal or greater risk? Thanks. I'll answer the second part.

Now, you know, the anytime you get this much energy that you're putting into a system like this and a lot of dynamic events, you know, there is there is some risk. It's our job, to either understand those risks and make sure that we've mitigated those in a way that we feel comfortable with, and we can execute the mission. As Jeff said, though, this is this is a this is a first time with crew. This is there's been there's been some we're finding out a lot of new pieces to the configuration this time. Take all that's going through all the reviews.

All those need to work. Jeff and his team done an outstanding job developing flight rules. That give, give us the ability to respond quickly to any kind of off, situations. Once we, leave the launch pad and then get into the mission. And then, as Jeff mentioned a minute ago, you know, the dynamic event of hitting the entry interface and, and coming back into the Earth's atmosphere is obviously one, that, where you put a lot more energy into the system.

So, you know, I would I would say I don't I don't prioritize either one of those over the other one. But, you know, from an overall perspective, that's, that's just part of cheat and gravity. Jeff. So as far as launch aborts, right, we've got abort coverage, you know, from, from pre-launch there when, when the capsule's on the pad all the way through, you know, of course, stage flight. If we were to have an issue and, you know, obviously you're right, we don't want to have one.

But if we did have one that would require the crew to take, take the last abort, that is an option to them the whole way, through until we jettison the last, after we jettison the last. At that point, we still have aborts where Orion would separate from the excess and then use the Orion engines actually, to perform the aborts off of the core stage. And so it's really set up such that they always have an abort option. It's going to be a fair amount of G's. If they have to ride the last, of course, the boosters will still be burning at that point when they the last engines ignite and pull the Orion off the top.

But it's it's a case where the crew will survive and we'll get them home, and, we'll, we'll be able to to go on and and get them home safe. Take one on the back. I feel the excitement, too. It's a it's a great day. Great great friend with WTOP radio up in Washington, DC.

Two questions. One, if you can't make this launch window by April, when would be the next one? And the second one? A little lunar science. You're shooting for a lunar full phase on the far side, but what would be your limit if you can't make that?

As to the lunar illumination that you'd like, thank you very much. And light that candle. Though for the, for the lunar science, I'll say that the lighting conditions on the far side of the moon are not going to be, criteria for determining when we launch. So what we have done is make sure that, the astronauts are trained to provide us with observations, regardless of the lighting environment. Now, I will say they have probably pretty much looked through what the options might look like.

And they probably have their favorite. But again, we're going to launch when it's safe and we're ready. And and we're going to do the best science that we can, under those conditions. All right. And so with respect to launch periods, rolling out, when we roll out, as you know, we do not have full access to everything at the pad.

But one of the new capabilities that we did add for, Artemis two is something called contingency pad access. And what that allows us to do is to go in and do a retest. It's, an abbreviated retest of the flight termination system. And that plays into that 28 and 35 day requirement that we have with the range. So unlike Artemis one, where we rolled out and we had a single month of opportunity and you had to come back to the VAB to retest the system, we actually have a new capability for Artemis two that allows us to stay out of the pad for two, launch periods so we can retest that.

And you get you get two launch periods when you go out. Now, that is saying that if you don't have some issue come up that you require roll back for, so that would get us through two launch periods. You know, there is it's a it's a bit of, a puzzle, I would say in terms of, you know, it depends on why you scrubbed what kind of, you know, what you need to repair. And, and if you choose to roll back and then what that turnaround time is. But we roughly to answer your question, we have opportunities in just about every month.

It does vary. The number of days varies by monthly opportunity, but it's roughly somewhere in a little less than a week. Some months it's a little less than that. Maybe 3 or 4 days. But we do have we have opportunities every month.

Okay. We have time for just one more question here. Yes, you. Yes, you. Yeah.

Hi. Josh, ginger Space. com. Barring any major malfunctions or mishaps, what milestones during Artemis two must go, right in order to greenlight Artemis three to proceed as the program's first lunar landing mission. To do.

Well, certainly, I would think we we're going to have, we'll have some things that we have to deal with, and we'll have to evaluate those and maybe do some course correction. For Artemis three. But, you know, and in my opinion, doing the check out of the systems with the crew on board and getting the crew home safely, that's that's that's the big milestone. Are there any mission components, like the proximity operations where, any, Orion experiences a hiccup, but still is is qualified for for that sort of maneuverability, you know, specifically prox ups. I think we have great confidence, in our capability to model that, after all, you know, we fly other space vehicles and prox stops all the time.

We're docking to to ES fairly regularly. So, you know, if we have an issue with prox ops, you know, that's something I think we have to understand why. Right. What was the cause of the issue? And as John said, understand the hiccup.

But I wouldn't say that would would necessarily, you know, disqualify the systems. I think the understanding there is what's important for what occurred. All right. And that's all we have time for today. I want to thank our participants for being here today.

You can watch live views of Roll-Out starting tomorrow at 7 a. m. as the rocket and spacecraft roll out of the Vehicle Assembly Building. That will be at 7 a. m.

, and then at 9 a. m. eastern, we will have an opportunity to hear from NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, as well as the Artemis two crew. You can watch both on NASA's YouTube channel. And with that, thank you for joining us.

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