Humanity will take one bigger step into the cosmos with yet another giant leap for mankind Wednesday, April 1, when NASA’s Artemis II mission launches from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island in Florida.
Launch window opens at 12:24 p.m. Hawai‘i Standard Time — in less than T-minus 30 minutes now — for the first crewed flight in more than 50 years to blast off on a path toward the moon.
That window will remain open for 2 hours.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch as well as Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency are taking a trip aboard an Orion spacecraft with Space Launch System — or SLS — rocket.
This also marks the first manned flight of an Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket around the moon, with the crew also becoming the first humans to fly around the Earth’s lunar partner since Apollo 17 in 1972.
The goal is to verify modern human capabilities in deep space, paving the way for long-term exploration and science on the lunar surface and eventually Mars.
It will also provide critical data for the Artemis III mission — which will be the first crewed landing on the lunar surface since Apollo 17.
Artemis II will return to Earth after about 10 days in space, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, scheduled for a location about 50 to 60 miles off the coast of San Diego, Calif.
This mission will make history in even more ways with Koch becoming the first woman to travel toward the moon, Glover as the first person of color on a lunar mission and Hansen being the first non-United States citizen to journey to the moon.
Crew members also will boldly go where no one has before, traveling farther than any humans ever.
The launch was expected to draw 400,000 or more people to the Space Coast of Florida to watch history in the making. NASA is also livestreaming the launch on YouTube (which you can see attached to this story).
Vehicles were already lined up for miles before sunrise in Hawai‘i along roads outside and around Kennedy Space Center.
“It’s a great day for us. It’s a great day for the team,” said Artemis II commander Wiseman in an NBC News story prior to today’s launch.
The mission leader added Tuesday afternoon, March 31, in a post on X that “it is time to fly.”
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told NBC News in an interview Tuesday that it’s time to start believing again as he outlined his agency’s new ambitions.
“Artemis II is the opening act,” said Isaacman. “It’s a test mission, right?”
NASA’s goal by next year is to be sending uncrewed rockets to the moon on a schedule of months and not years.
“Then, we’ll set up for 2028, where American astronauts will return to the surface of the moon, and we’re going to build a moon base,” Isaacman told NBC. “We’re going to establish an enduring presence, realize its scientific, economic value, make it a proving ground for what comes next.”
