NASA is making final preparations for the historic Artemis II launch with an 80% favourable weather forecast, as teams monitor cloud cover and winds at Kennedy Space Center
The crew at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is completing final preparations ahead of commencing launch countdown procedures for the Artemis II mission, scheduled to lift off no earlier than Wednesday, April 1.
During a countdown status briefing on Sunday (March 29), NASA specialists delivered a progress report on Artemis II launch readiness three days ahead of departure. Amongst considerable anticipation for the forthcoming mission, attention is firmly focused on meteorological conditions and cloud coverage before launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The outlook for launch day indicates an 80% probability of favourable meteorological conditions, with principal worries being cloud coverage and the likelihood of strong winds in the vicinity. Personnel will continue observing the weather over the next few days, reports the Mirror.
Shawn Quinn, programme manager, Exploration Ground Systems, stated: “The one thing we are watching is the weather, and we got a latest forecast from the weather officer from Space Launch Delta 45. The thing we’re watching is cumulus clouds, the Thick Cloud Rule, and also winds.
“So right now we’re forecast to be 80% go on Wednesday afternoon, so that’s good.”
The ‘Thick Cloud Rule’ represents a launch safety requirement prohibiting rocket launches through cloud layers exceeding 4,500 feet (1.4 km) in thickness that extend into freezing temperatures (0C to -20C). It prevents triggering lightning by highly electrified, non-stormy clouds, necessitating a launch postponement to safeguard the vehicle.
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Mr Quinn said: “This has already been an incredible week with the arrival of our Artmeis II flight crew. As they were pulling up in their aeroplanes, we could actually see the moon in the daylight and it was really really cool.”
A launch countdown pre-test briefing took place on Saturday (March 28), marking the final stage prior to the launch countdown commencing on Monday afternoon.
“It was one of the cleanest launch countdown pretest briefings we’ve ever had,” Mr Quinn added.
Fellow specialists at the press briefing included Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator of the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, Chris Cianciola, deputy manager of the SLS Programme, and Howard Hu, manager of the Orion Programme.
Dr Lori Glaze said: “We are getting very, very close and we are ready. We held our flight readiness review a couple of weeks ago and since that time, all of our operations have been going very smoothly, it’s been going very well.”
“Our flight systems are ready, the ground systems are ready, our launch and operations team are ready and our flight operations teams are also ready.. The crew arrived yesterday and I know that they are ready, they are more than ready, they can’t wait to get off the ground.”
Chris Cianciola said: “We are incredibly excited to be here. This is our first opportunity to launch humans into deep space in more than 53 years – you think about that.” He continued: “Our teams are working hard to get the rocket ready… The energy and dedication as a team is truly electric. Everybody’s excited – we all recognise the historical significance of this mission. We are still focussed on making sure the rocket is fully prepared and ready to go.”
Howard Hu added: “I am also very excited to be here and representing the entire Orion team. We’ve worked very hard to get to this point… We’ve had our share of work that we need to get done, and when we roll back to the vehicle assembly building, we powered on, and we didn’t have anything that we needed to fix – we did top off our launch report system battery – but there are no issues that we’re working to right now.”
“So, from our perspective, our spaceship is ready to go and fly Reid [Wiseman], Victor [Glover], Jeremy [Hansen] and Christina [Koch] to the moon and back.”
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