NASA’s Artemis II began its final journey on Earth on Saturday. The fully stacked Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule rolled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., a milestone for the first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years.
“This is the start of a very long journey,” said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman at a press conference on Saturday.
From the gigantic shed it has called home, Artemis II will take a leisurely pace of just under one mile an hour to make the four-mile trip to Launch Pad 39B.
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Once the rocket makes it to the pad, the real fun begins. On Friday NASA officials laid out the series of tests and checks Artemis II will need to complete before it is cleared for takeoff, including the critical “wet dress rehearsal.” That involves pumping the rocket full of cryogenic propellant and practicing the countdown sequence as if it were about to launch—testing the rocket’s limits without humans onboard.
If all goes to plan, NASA is targeting a launch no earlier than February 6.
Artemis II is a test of the space agency’s readiness to send humans back to the lunar surface—but the mission won’t actually be landing on the moon. Instead four astronauts—NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen—will take a loop around the moon, likely going farther into space than any human has gone before.
On the 10-day journey, the astronauts will conduct a series of experiments and tests that will inform NASA’s next planned moon mission, Artemis III. Eventually, the space agency wants to set up a permanently staffed base on the lunar surface, a goal Isaacman that emphasized at the press conference on Saturday.
But before any of that can happen, Artemis II must first complete its mission. “We really are ready to go,” Wiseman said at the same press conference.
Editor’s Note (1/20/26): This article was edited after posting to correct the date of the press conference and the time frame of Artemis II’s journey to the launch pad.