Orion spacecraft makes crucial move toward its 2026 launch to moon

Orion spacecraft makes crucial move toward its 2026 launch to moon
by Lisa Hornung
Washington DC (UPI) Oct 17, 2025

NASA's Orion spacecraft was moved seven miles to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center Thursday, its second-to-last move before its scheduled launch in 2026.

NASA got an exception to allow it to continue work during the government shutdown in certain areas, including the Artemis II mission.

The spacecraft, which contains the crew and service modules, was moved seven miles from the Launch Abort System Facility to the VAB around midnight EDT Friday.

Four astronauts will use Orion. The Artemis II crew will become the first people to be so close to the moon since 1972. The astronauts are Commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen. They named the craft "Integrity."

Charlie Blackwell-Thomson, the Artemis 2 launch director, gave a mission overview briefing on Sept. 22 and said the Orion Stage Adapter would be stacked in High Bay 3 the week before its arrival, Spaceflightnow reported.

Orion will undergo a barrage of tests in the coming months, she said. Like the Artemis I mission, Orion will get the End-to-End Comm Test and the Interface Verification Test. But there will be others because the flight will be manned.

"Those new tests consist of the Countdown Demonstration Test, which is about our crewed flight. Back in the shuttle days, we had a similar test that was called TCDT: Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test," Spaceflightnow reported Blackwell-Thompson said. "That's where we suit up the crew, they come out, we go through our checklist and our countdown. They'll enter the ship, we'll get them strapped in, we'll do comm checks, we'll do the configuration of the crew module and we'll count down to inside of terminal count before we have a planned stop."

Teams will conduct a test of the flight termination system and begin final vehicle closeouts, once the Countdown Demonstration Test Part 1 is complete, she said.

"And when all of that is done, we'll get ready to roll out from the VAB to the pad," Blackwell-Thompson said, about the next journey the craft will take -- about four miles. "Once we get to the launch pad, we will make the connections between the Mobile Launcher and the pad. We have a little bit of testing that we will do out there, as well."

After that, it's time for the wet dress rehearsal. This is the test that discovered hydrogen fuel leaks in the Artemis I. Blackwell-Thomson said last month that the leak issue has been "put to bed." They changed the design of a valve and demonstrated a gentler fueling procedure three years ago, Ars Technica reported.

"That'll be a full tanking of the vehicle, core stage and upper stage. We'll get into a terminal count, and again, we will count down inside a terminal count to about the 29-second point and then we will terminate that test," she said. "We'll go review the data and a few days later, we'll get into launch countdown."

The work and testing at the pad takes about 18 days, Blackwell-Thomson said.