After weeks of delays, NASA is finally poised for the launch of a historic flight Wednesday to send a crew of four astronauts on a trailblazing nine-day trip around the moon and back.The Artemis II mission — with commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, astronaut Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — is scheduled to lift off at 6:24 p.m. EDT. CBS News will have live coverage.NASA began its launch countdown Monday afternoon, and the weather forecast is holding steady with an 80% chance of favorable conditions for launch.AdvertisementAdvertisement”Hey, let’s go to the moon!” exclaimed Wiseman, speaking to a throng of reporters after he and his crewmates arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday. “I think the nation and the world has been waiting a long time to do this again.”They originally planned to launch in early February, but the flight was delayed, first by hydrogen fuel leaks and then later by problems with the upper stage propellant pressurization system. NASA says both issues have been resolved, clearing the way for blastoff.A test mission, full of firstsThis will be the first crewed flight atop NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful operational booster in the world, and only its second flight overall. It will also be the first piloted flight of an Orion deep space crew capsule.AdvertisementAdvertisementA major objective is to put the crew ship, named Integrity, through its paces.”This is a test mission,” Wiseman said. “When we get off the planet, we might come right back home. We might spend three or four days around Earth. We might go to the moon. That’s where we want to go, but it is a test mission, and we are ready for every scenario as we ride this amazing Space Launch System in the Orion spacecraft, 250,000 miles away. It’s going to be amazing!”A full moon rises behind the Space Launch System rocket, a reminder of what the rocket was built to do. / Credit: NASA(NASA)Wiseman, Glover and Koch are NASA space veterans. Hansen, making his first space flight, will become the first Canadian to leave Earth orbit.With their mission to circle the moon, they become the first crew to head for the moon since the Apollo 17 flight that landed there more than 50 years ago.AdvertisementAdvertisementBig step toward a future moon landingMore in ScienceIt’s a major milestone in a new NASA space race with China, which plans to put their own “taikonauts” on the lunar surface by 2030. NASA hopes to win that race by launching one and possibly two Artemis moon landing missions in 2028.But first, the agency plans to thoroughly test the Orion crew capsule during this Artemis II voyage.The Artemis II astronauts, left to right: commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, astronaut Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. / Credit: NASAThen, next year, NASA plans for astronauts to rendezvous and dock in low-Earth orbit with new moon landers being built by SpaceX and Blue Origin to test critical …
