The countdown was underway Tuesday for the first flight by astronauts to the Moon in almost 54 years.
Four astronauts aboard Artemis II are scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral at 3:34 p.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday for a nearly 10-day flight that will take them around the Moon and back to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego.
It will be the first crewed flight for NASA’s giant Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule. The uncrewed Artemis I mission, using a similar rocket and capsule, flew to the moon in late 2022 in a successful test flight.
The Artemis II crew, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida preparing for the flight.
NASA said the weather forecast shows an 80% chance of favorable conditions, with cloud coverage and potential for high winds on the ground as the primary concerns.
“Our team has worked extremely hard to get us to this moment,” said launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. “Certainly all indications are right now we are in excellent, excellent shape.”
The space agency attempted a launch in February, but intermittent hydrogen leaks forced a postponement to allow repairs to the 34-story-high rocket.
Artemis II will follow a “free return” trajectory, with the Moon’s gravity slinging the Orion capsule back toward Earth, where it will re-enter the atmosphere at 25,000 miles per hour.
After splashdown, the Navy will recover the crew and spacecraft using a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship from Naval Base San Diego.
Both NASA and SpaceX are now recovering crewed spacecraft in the Pacific off San Diego County.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
