Updated on: March 20, 2026 / 12:50 AM EDT / CBS News
NASA’s repaired Artemis II moon rocket began a slow, roughly 12-hour trek back to the launch pad early Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, setting up a delayed April 1 launch attempt to carry four astronauts on a nine-day mission around the moon and back.
Mounted on an Apollo-era crawler-transporter, the 332-foot Artemis II Space Launch System and its mobile launch platform rolled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building about 12:20 a.m. EDT, nearly four-and-a-half hours later than planned because of high winds along Florida’s Space Coast. The four-mile move to Launch Pad 39B was expected to finish around midday, after which engineers will reconnect fuel lines, power and data cables and ready the pad while running tests to verify connections and systems.
NASA says earlier problems that required an additional fueling test have been addressed and that the next time the SLS is loaded with more than 750,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, it will be for launch. Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen entered pre-flight medical quarantine Wednesday night. They plan to travel to Kennedy a week from Friday, aiming to strap in at 6:24 p.m. EDT on April 1, the start of a two-hour launch window.
This mission will be the first time astronauts fly atop an SLS rocket and inside an Orion crew capsule; the 2022 test flight was unpiloted and did not include a life support system. The Artemis II crew will use their first full day in space to check propulsion, navigation, communications and life support systems before heading toward the moon.
Artemis II is the first piloted lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972. The crew will swing around the moon and return to a Pacific Ocean splashdown without entering lunar orbit. If launched on schedule, they will travel farther from Earth than any humans in history. A successful flight would pave the way for a subsequent SLS/Orion mission to test rendezvous and docking with one or both moon landers being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin, with at least one and possibly two moon-landing missions targeted for 2028.
The flight was originally slated for early February but was delayed after hydrogen leaks were found during a rehearsal countdown. That leak was fixed at the pad and the rocket completed a second fueling test without major issues, setting a March launch target. Engineers then encountered a separate problem: they could not pump high-pressure helium back into the rocket’s upper stage. Pressurized helium is used to push propellants to engines and to purge tanks and lines.
Because the second-stage issue could not be accessed at the pad, the entire SLS had to be rolled back into the Vehicle Assembly Building, where extendable platforms allowed access. Technicians traced the helium problem to out-of-place seals in a quick-disconnect fitting and repaired it. They also replaced batteries in the rocket’s flight termination system, recharged other batteries and replaced seals in the first stage liquid oxygen propellant umbilical.
NASA has a limited launch opportunity window that runs through April 6; if Artemis II cannot launch by then, the mission would need to slip roughly three weeks to the next favorable alignment of Earth and moon, along with suitable lighting and solar power conditions.