Countdown to historic Artemis II launch
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The Bottom Line
NASA is launching Artemis II Wednesday, sending four astronauts farther from Earth than humans have ever traveled.
AI Summary
NASA is preparing to launch its Artemis II mission Wednesday evening, weather permitting, sending a four-person crew on a nine-day journey that will take them farther from Earth than any human has traveled before. The mission will loop around the moon's far side and return to Earth, marking a major milestone in NASA's broader effort to return humans to the lunar surface and establish a foundation for eventual Mars exploration. This flight represents the first crewed test of NASA's next-generation Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, both essential to the agency's long-term deep-space ambitions. The mission comes roughly three years after the uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022, which validated key systems before human crew certification. Success would demonstrate that NASA's most ambitious human spaceflight program since the Apollo era is on track.
What's Being Done
NASA is proceeding with the Artemis II launch scheduled for Wednesday evening, weather permitting.
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Mark Kelly on Artemis II mission: ‘This is something we’ve never done before’
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired NASA astronaut, said Wednesday that the Artemis II mission to the moon is uncharted territory for American space explorers. “They’re going to go 4,000 miles on the far side of the moon, which is something we’ve never done before, even during Apollo,” Kelly told NewsNation’s Henry Amor at Kennedy…
NASA's Artemis II astronauts launch to the moon today. Watch it here - NPR
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NASA starts countdown for first crewed Moon mission in over 50 years
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