NASA is preparing to launch Artemis II with four astronauts on a roughly 10-day mission around the Moon, marking its most ambitious human spaceflight in decades and a key step towards returning astronauts to the lunar surface ahead of China.
Mission managers have given the go-ahead for the Artemis II launch, which could take place as early as Wednesday at 6:24 p.m. EDT (22:24 GMT). The flight will use the 322-foot Space Launch System rocket, carrying the Orion crew capsule.
The launch is set to take place from the Kennedy Space Center, close to the historic site used by Apollo-era astronauts more than 50 years ago.
The crew includes NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman, alongside Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. They arrived in Florida days earlier and have been in quarantine ahead of liftoff, following standard pre-mission health protocols.
On launch day, the astronauts began preparations hours in advance, including final briefings and checks before travelling to the launch pad.
NASA engineers began fuelling the rocket early on Wednesday, loading it with more than 700,000 gallons of super-cooled propellant to power its four RS-25 engines - hardware previously used on the Space Shuttle.
“Everything is going very well right now,” assistant launch director Jeremy Graeber said during the fuelling process.
Weather conditions were largely favourable, with only a small chance of disruption during the two-hour launch window. If delayed, backup opportunities are available later in the week and into early April.
“Certainly all indications are right now, we are in excellent, excellent shape as we get into count,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said.
The mission had previously been delayed from February and March due to a hydrogen leak, which required engineers to roll the rocket back for further inspection.
Artemis II will take astronauts on a looping path around the Moon, travelling about 252,000 miles (406,000 km) from Earth - farther than any human mission in history.
The current record is held by the crew of Apollo 13, which reached about 248,000 miles in 1970 during an aborted lunar landing.
No humans have travelled beyond Earth’s orbit since the final Apollo mission in 1972.
NASA previously tested the Orion spacecraft during the uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022. Artemis II will go further by placing astronauts on board to test life-support systems, communications and manual flight controls.
The Orion capsule is built by Lockheed Martin, while the Space Launch System has been developed by Boeing and Northrop Grumman. The programme has faced criticism over its cost, estimated at between $2 billion and $4 billion per launch.
Meanwhile, private firms, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, are developing lunar landers for future missions.
Artemis II is an early step in NASA’s broader Artemis programme, which aims to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon’s south pole. The agency is targeting a crewed landing later this decade, part of a renewed space race with China, which is also planning a human lunar mission around 2030.
The explosion at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday afternoon killed at least 12 people and injured a further 309, according t...
Indian police detained more than 2,000 protesters in Delhi on Saturday as authorities blocked a planned demonstration calling for the resignation o...
At least 12 people, including three children, have been killed in a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, a day after U.S. Presiden...
Leaders of countries from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have agreed to hold coordinated population censuses around 2030. They took the decision at the CIS Council of Heads of State meeting in Awaza, Turkmenistan on Friday, media reported.
The explosion at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday afternoon killed at least 12 people and injured a further 309, according to Saudi Arabia’s Civil Aviation Authority. The airport remains closed until further notice.
Britain and Israel have reached a temporary compromise over the future of the British Consulate General in East Jerusalem, easing a diplomatic dispute that had threatened to further strain relations between the two countries.
South African judge Navanethem “Navi” Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday “for her efforts to promote peace and international law,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
The U.S. has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday (9 October) escalating tensions with European allies and potentially targeting companies that provide services to the tribunal. The move came hours after former ICC judge Navi Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Anthropic has announced that it is updating its usage policy to allow its AI agents to end conversations involving repeated abuse or cruel behaviour towards them, citing previous incidents.
Türkiye has banned children under 15 from using social media under new regulations published on Saturday. The new regulations prohibit firms from providing services to children “who have not reached the age of 15.”
Microsoft has introduced new tools to stop AI agents from accessing data without permission, alongside a Nvidia-powered Surface laptop that can run advanced AI directly on the device.
Picture three scenarios: a hospital that can spot a disease before the patient feels sick, a power grid that feeds thousands of data centres and a government network that is attacked daily. All three depend on artificial intelligence, and one question matters most: who is really in charge?
OpenAI and Anthropic told Australian parliament on Tuesday they would welcome laws requiring them to report data breaches carried out by their AI agents, acknowledging the decision to notify authorities was currently at their discretion.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment