Name: Nasa rolls out Artemis II rocket ahead of crewed Moon mission | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-01-17T17:09:49.000Z
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The rocket that will be used for the first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years is beginning its journey to the launch pad.

Let's show you the scene live from Cape Canaveral, where NASA's rocket for the Artemis 2 mission is due to start its four mile crawl.

Going at speeds of a maximum of one mile an hour, it's going to take 12 hours to get there.

It's having to slow down when it gets to corners and hills so it doesn't topple over.

It's going to have four astronauts on board when it flies around the moon and back during its 10 day mission, paving the way for a future lunar landing.

NASA is hoping that the launch of the rocket will be in a few weeks time.

Our science correspondent palab Ghosh reports.

NASA's gigantic moon rocket, the Space Launch System.

On top, the Orion space capsule, which will carry the four strong crew.

It was put together in a vast hangar called the Vehicle Assembly Building.

After extensive checks, the engineers believe it's now ready to be rolled out to the launch pad.

What we have done is make sure that the astronauts are trained to provide us with observations regardless of the lighting environment.

Now I will say they have probably pretty much looked through what the options might look like and they probably have their favorite.

But again, we're going to launch when it's safe and we're ready and we're going to do the best science that we can.

Under those conditions, the moon rocket will make a four mile journey, just as the previous test flight, Artemis 1, which was uncrewed, did in 2022.

It's carried on the back of a giant vehicle called a transporter crawler, which carries its precious cargo slowly and carefully at around 1 mile an hour will take up to 12 hours to get to the pad.

The Artemis 2 astronauts will watch the rocket roll out.

In just a few weeks, they'll be inside the Orion spacecraft and lift off to the moon.

NASA says the earliest the rocket can launch is 6 February, but

has also provided more launch windows as far ahead as April.

We'd like to dedicate the first step of Apollo 17 to all those who made it possible.

This mission won't land astronauts on the moon, as happened more than 50 years ago with the Apollo missions.

Instead, Artemis 2 will loop around it to test systems and pave the way for astronauts on the next mission to return to the lunar surface.

Megan Argo is a professional astrophysicist, as opposed to an amateur one, I suppose, and a Science journalist.

You're not a doctor for Nothing, are you?

How excited are you about this Artemis mission?

I mean, I'm not old enough to have seen astronauts go to the moon in the Apollo era.

So I'm really looking forward to seeing astronauts going back and seeing astronauts who are not just American.

This mission will take a Canadian to the moon for the first time time, as well as the first astronaut of color and the first woman as well.

So all of those really exciting, really interesting to look forward to.

How interested do you think the public will be though?

Because our sights have been set on Mars since astronauts last went to the moon.

Yeah, I think sending humans to Mars is going to be phenomenally exciting, something we've not done before, but

people have dreamed about for decades and decades.

I think going back to the moon is an important step along that trajectory.

It is a long time since we sent humans this far into deep.

So this mission is crucial to testing the system.

So say, as Pallab said in his piece, that they're not going to land on this mission.

But it will test the spacecraft and make sure that everything is functioning with humans on board as safely as possible and within specifications so that on the next mission the astronauts don't have to worry about the spacecraft.

We will know that it's performing as, as well as it can.

And getting humans back on the moon, getting them there on a base that is manned for the long term, rather than just sending people there for a few days at a time, that's a really crucial step again for testing systems, for testing procedures.

And when we do go to Mars, we are then much better prepared for undertaking what is a much longer, much riskier journey because you're going much further into deep space and the journey times are that much longer.

You want to know you can cope with those situations before you go that far.

Why do we need a permanent base on the moon?

It does bring up all sorts of ethical questions, doesn't it?

And looks to be sort of triggering a new space race.

Because the Chinese want to get there too.

And I think that's partly what's pushing NASA to go as fast as they are with the Artemis program.

I think the, the Chinese, their space program has made huge leaps.

They've gone from basically not having much of a space program to where they are now having their own space station, doing sample return from the moon, sending spacecraft to Mars, and

they've come that far in what is a relatively short space of time.

So they are making rapid progress and they are aiming to put humans on the moon before 20.

And America, through Artemis, they have plans to do the same.

Whether Americans plans will pull it off by 2030, whether the Chinese will get there by 2030.

There are so many things that can go wrong.

But it's certainly an exciting time to see what's going on.

I think there's still a lot of science that we can do on the Moon, and

that's why people like me, astronomers, are really looking forward to seeing humans back on the Moon.

We know that certainly the Americans, and

I think the Chinese too, are planning to land near the lunar south pole.

And we know from observations over the last 20 years that there are water deposits in permanently shadowed craters near the lunar poles.

If we can actually sample that water, that tells us something about the history of our own solar system, tells us something about the history of the Moon, the evolution of the Moon and how it got to be the way it is today.

But it also can tell us something potentially about where the water on the Earth came from as well.

And that's something that's really hard to do on the Earth.

We need to go out to the solar system and sample pristine material from the early days of the solar system.

And those cold traps on the lunar surface near the poles are an excellent place to do that.

So that's one bit of the science that we're really looking forward to.

And as I said, the other reason for putting a base on the moon, having humans up there long term, is to test the procedures, test whether we can build structures that can keep astronauts safe for the long term, test whether we can power them adequately, whether we can have water regeneration systems, oxygen generation systems that are reliable, that function in those extreme environments for the long term, because those are systems you're going to need on Mars, keep your astronauts safe and comfortable as well.

So there's a lot of things we can do on the Moon in our backyard, as it were, testing in what's a relatively safe environment in the sense that it only takes a few days to get there and back before you then go on a minimum six month journey out to Mars and try and do the same thing.

Dr. Megan Argo, good to have your insights.