For the second time this year, the POT moved its moon rocket from the hangar to the pad on Friday in hopes of launching four astronauts on a lunar flight next month.
If the latest repairs work and everything else goes as NASA wants, the Space Launch System could lift off on April 1 from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The crew of the Artemis II entered quarantine this week in Houston.
The 98-meter (322-foot) rocket began the slow 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) journey in the dead of night, carried on a massive caterpillar used since the Apollo era in the 1960s. It was expected to last 12 hours. The trip was hindered for several hours by strong wind.
The three Americans and the Canadian will circle the Moon in their capsule and then return directly home without stopping. Its mission should have been completed by now, but hydrogen fuel leaks and clogged helium lines forced it to be delayed for two months.
While technicians plugged leaks on the pad, the helium problem could only be fixed in the Vehicle Assembly Building, forcing NASA to turn back the rocket in late February.
The last time NASA sent astronauts to the Moon was during Apollo 17 in 1972. The new Artemis program aims for a two-person moon landing in 2028.