For the first time in half a century, countdown clocks began ticking Monday toward launch of a three-man one-woman crew on a trip to the moon and back, a major step in NASA’s accelerated drive to establish a lunar beachhead with landings in 2028, followed by construction of a moon base.With forecasters continuing to predict an 80% chance of favorable weather, Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen hope to strap into their Orion capsule and blast off atop a giant Space Launch System rocket at 6:24 p.m. EDT Wednesday.Photographers set up remote cameras near launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center on Sunday to capture the huge Space Launch System rocket as it blasts off Wednesday, sending four astronauts on a trip to the moon. / Credit: NASA”We just wrapped up our L(aunch)-minus two (day) mission management team review and the team polled go to proceed towards the planned April 1 launch attempt,” said Amit Kshatriya, the NASA associate administrator.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe review included “the usual readiness items — vehicle status, ground systems, flight hardware and the integrated launch operations timeline,” Kshatriya said. “We also reviewed the most recent engineering assessments (and) the team concluded that everything continues to look good, and there are no issues preventing us from pressing ahead.”Assuming an on-time liftoff, the crew will pass behind the moon next Monday, sailing 4,100 miles above the lunar far side before heading back to Earth for a Pacific Ocean splashdown on the southern California coast on April 10.Mission duration: nine days and one hour, covering nearly 700,000 miles.Countdown clocks began ticking at 4:44 p.m. EDT Monday. Engineers planned to spend the initial hours of the carefully orchestrated procedure readying the SLS rocket and ground systems for propellant loading and powering up the crew’s Orion capsule. The astronauts, meanwhile, planned to enjoy dinner with family members at the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.AdvertisementAdvertisementOn Tuesday, the launch team will continue power-up and checkout operations, testing communications circuits and loading “late stow” experiment packages.Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson walks reporters through Artemis II countdown procedures during a news conference at the Kennedy Space Center Monday afternoon. / Credit: NASAEarly Wednesday, cockpit switches will be configured for launch, star trackers and navigation gear will be powered on and Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson will poll her launch team to make sure they’re “go” for propellant loading, scheduled to begin at 7:44 a.m.The core stage of the SLS rocket will be filled with 537,000 gallons of supercold liquid hydrogen fuel and 196,000 gallons of liquid oxygen. The rocket’s upper stage, the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, or ICPS, will be loaded with another 24,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen.The process will take about five-and-a-half hours to complete. While fuel loading is underway, Wiseman and his crewmates will be awakened and given a weather briefing before donning their pressure suits and heading for launch pad 39B to strap in aboard the Orion capsule shortly before 2:30 p.m.AdvertisementAdvertis …
