NASA Targeting March 6th As Earliest Possible Launch Attempt for Artemis II

[00:00:00] I think a little uh under three weeks [00:00:02] since we met uh to discuss wet dress [00:00:04] number one. Um so I just want to thank [00:00:06] everybody uh who's here in the room and [00:00:09] who's dialed in online uh to listen to [00:00:11] the press briefing today. We're very [00:00:12] excited to talk to you about uh how the [00:00:14] wet dress went yesterday. But I want to [00:00:16] start first by thanking our incredible [00:00:19] team um across all parts of the Artemis [00:00:22] 2 program uh that have gotten us to this [00:00:24] point where we are today. Um they have [00:00:27] done an enormous amount of work to get [00:00:29] us to this point. Um and just over as I [00:00:32] said the last three weeks, a little less [00:00:34] than three weeks, a lot of work uh [00:00:37] learning from wet dress one, putting in [00:00:39] place some fixes to things like the [00:00:41] seals. Um at the quick uh disconnect uh [00:00:45] interface uh uh doing some replacement [00:00:49] on filters on the ground system side. um [00:00:52] thinking through uh various aspects of [00:00:54] how we implement uh the wet dress [00:00:56] rehearsal and I can say for the most [00:00:58] part those uh fixes all performed pretty [00:01:01] well yesterday and Charlie's going to [00:01:03] speak to that in a lot more detail. Um [00:01:05] so that was really exciting. Um if you [00:01:07] followed our progress uh yesterday uh we [00:01:10] were able to fully tank the SLS rocket [00:01:13] within the planned timeline. Uh we [00:01:15] demonstrated our crew module closeout [00:01:17] activities with the closeout crew again [00:01:20] on the timeline. Um and we also [00:01:23] successfully demonstrated uh the launch [00:01:25] countdown and again Charlie will talk in [00:01:27] a lot more detail. Uh we did navigate [00:01:29] through a few issues. You'll hear a [00:01:30] little bit about some of those but [00:01:32] overall the countdown went very very [00:01:34] smoothly. Um we do have work to go um to [00:01:37] get our systems ready for launch. We're [00:01:39] we've already begun the data reviews [00:01:41] from the wet dress yesterday and there's [00:01:42] some other work that needs to be done um [00:01:44] out at the pad. Um one thing I do want [00:01:47] to say here today is that follow uh [00:01:49] following that successful wet dress [00:01:51] yesterday, we're now targeting March 6th [00:01:54] as our earliest launch attempt. [00:01:57] Um I am going to caveat that I want to [00:01:59] be open, transparent with all of you [00:02:02] that there is still pending work. Um [00:02:05] there's work a lot of forward work that [00:02:07] remains um including uh the post-wet [00:02:09] dress analyses of course. Uh we do have [00:02:12] some significant work to be completed [00:02:13] out at the pad. Charlie will talk to [00:02:15] that in more detail. And we also have a [00:02:18] uh multi-day flight readiness review [00:02:20] that will come up uh later next week. Um [00:02:23] and so those things are all in front of [00:02:24] us. We need to successfully navigate all [00:02:26] of those. Um but assuming that happens, [00:02:29] it it puts us in a very good position um [00:02:31] to target the March 6th [00:02:34] Um, we were fortunate yesterday to have [00:02:37] several of our crew members present for [00:02:39] the wet dress rehearsal. Um, I was able [00:02:41] to speak a little bit with with Reed [00:02:43] Wisman, uh, with Christina Cook and, uh, [00:02:46] uh, Jeremy Hansen. Um, they're all very, [00:02:49] very excited. I was glad they could be [00:02:51] here for for the wet dress. Um, they are [00:02:55] really getting uh, a lot of anticipation [00:02:57] for a potential launch in March. Uh, and [00:02:59] they go into quarantine this afternoon, [00:03:01] this evening. Uh so they will begin that [00:03:04] quarantine later today. Um the [00:03:07] excitement for Artemis 2 is really [00:03:09] really starting to build. Uh we can [00:03:12] really start to feel it. It's it's [00:03:13] coming. Um and I really can't wait to [00:03:16] welcome you all back here to Kennedy [00:03:18] Space Center when we're ready to fly [00:03:20] launch and fly this mission. Um you [00:03:22] know, every night I uh look up at the [00:03:24] moon and I see it and I get real excited [00:03:28] because I can really feel she's calling [00:03:30] us and we're ready. Thank you. I'm gonna [00:03:32] hand it over to