NASA showcases progress on Artemis II mission after SpaceX's Starship explosion
NASA showcased advancements in its Artemis II mission as SpaceX deals with the aftermath of its
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Kirk Shireman, Lockheed Martin's Orion program manager, expressed his enthusiasm about the progress of the Artemis program.
"It's very exciting. We're almost to the finish line," Shireman said.
WESH 2 got an inside look at the Vehicle Assembly Building, where crucial components of the Artemis II Space Launch System are being constructed.
High Bay Three, where they stack the rocket, is the final stage before it heads to the launch pad.
WESH 2 also visited the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building to see the Orion capsule up close.
The black panels are the solar arrays that will power the Orion spacecraft around the moon.
"When you walk down the hall, there you see the vehicle almost ready to fly. We just finished putting the solar arrays on, and you'll see it today, and tomorrow we're gonna start encapsulating the solar rays in the final fairing of the vehicle, and it won't look like this again until it's up in space," Shireman said.
NASA reports that the core stage is 100% complete, and team members are confident in the mission's safety.
"We have put in a lot of effort to not only build redundant systems but also manual capability for the crews to need, and of course, along the way, we have done tremendous detail work and testing to make sure that the spacecraft is safe for our crews," said Howard Hu, NASA Orion program manager.
This update comes less than 24 hours after SpaceX's latest test flight ended in an explosion, the second in two months.
The wreckage was seen streaming over Florida skies, causing flights to be briefly grounded at Orlando International Airport.
SpaceX posted a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the Starship's explosion, saying in part, "The vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost."
They added, "We will review the data from today's test flight to better understand the root cause."
WESH 2 asked Artemis team members about the issues and how they could impact the SLS program.
"Space is very difficult. Going into space is very difficult and a lot of things have to work together, and we all know what a challenge it is. It's really tough to see our partners in SpaceX have something like that, but I know they will recover and move forward, and we need them to move forward," Hu said.
He added that they don't go to the moon's surface without SpaceX, calling it the backbone for space exploration.
