NASA plans to launch four astronauts on a long-awaited trip around the moon as early as April 1, it announced Thursday.Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator of NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said teams are on track to roll the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft back to the launch pad at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on March 19.“Everything is going pretty well,” Glaze said at a news briefing.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe mission, called Artemis II, will be the first time on which NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule carry people. It will also be the first time astronauts have journeyed to the moon in more than 50 years.On the 10-day mission, the crew — NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — is expected to circle the moon, traveling farther from Earth than any humans have before.Liftoff is scheduled for 6:24 p.m. ET April 1, though the date depends on NASA teams’ completing checkouts of the rocket while it’s in the hangar, as well as subsequent work at the launch pad.NASA decided to press ahead with a launch attempt in less than three weeks after mission managers and top NASA officials gathered for two days for what’s known as a flight readiness review — a meeting during which the agency formally certifies a rocket and spacecraft for flight.AdvertisementAdvertisementGlaze said Wiseman, Koch, Glover and Hansen took part virtually in the flight readiness review and provided their perspectives.“Having them join us in this review really reinforced the importance of having open, honest discussions about our path forward and about the risk that we’re asking them to take,” she said.The astronauts are in training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. They are scheduled to enter quarantine there Wednesday to limit their exposure to germs before the launch. If all goes according to plan, the astronauts will then travel to the Kennedy Space Center on March 27, according to Shawn Quinn, manager of NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program.The 322-foot-tall Space Launch System rocket has been in its hangar for repairs since NASA rolled it back from the launch pad on Feb. 25.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe move followed a key fueling test on Feb. 19, known as a “wet dress rehearsal,” in which NASA practiced almost every step of a simulated launch countdown. Although the rehearsal was successful, engineers later discovered a blockage …
