NASA set to launch Artemis 2 moon mission today

NASA plans to launch its Artemis 2 moon mission from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida today (April 1) at 6:24 p.m. EDT (2224 GMT), Space.com reported.

Artemis 2 will use a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to send four astronauts — NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canada's Jeremy Hansen — on a 10-day trip around the moon and back to Earth in an Orion capsule.

No humans have ventured to lunar realms — or even beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) — since NASA's Apollo 17 moon-landing mission in December 1972.

All of the Apollo astronauts were also white American men, so Artemis 2 will make some demographic history as well: Glover, Koch and Hansen will become the first person of color, first woman and first non-American, respectively, ever to travel beyond LEO.

As its name suggests, Artemis 2 will be the second mission in NASA's Artemis program of moon exploration. Artemis 1 sent an uncrewed Orion to lunar orbit and back in late 2022.

Like that previous mission, Artemis 2 is a test flight, designed to show that Orion is capable of supporting astronauts for an extended period in deep space. It will mark the capsule's crew-carrying debut and third spaceflight overall, after Artemis 1 and an uncrewed test mission to Earth orbit in 2014.