Artemis II launch planned for Wednesday with four crew, sensors

NASA’s Artemis II mission, crewed with four astronauts, is scheduled to blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday evening, with NASA sayi that weather conditions are expected to be 80% favorable for launch. 

The 10-day mission, technically a test mission, will carry the crew in a loop around the Moon without orbiting or landing on the Moon, but giving officials critical insights into how the Orion crew module performs for use in planned Artemis missions to land on the Red Planet in coming years. The Orion crew module is laden with sensors to detect radiation, other environmental conditions, ship position, and more.  

It will carry humans farther from Earth into space than ever, by up to 6,000 miles, breaking a previous record held by Apollo 13 and reaching a maximum distance of 250,000 miles. Artemis I, launched and completed in late 2022, slingshotted around the moon also, but was uncrewed.

The four astronauts in the Orion crew module and service module will be strapped in atop a heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System. Their first public appearance came three years ago at the 2023 march Madness championship basketball game.   The first crewed mission to the Moon in 54 years, Artemis II will feature the first woman, first person of color and first Canadian to fly beyond low Earth orbit.  Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch from NASA join mission specialist Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency. 

The countdown for launch on Wednesday begins at 4:44 p.m. EDT with launch no earlier than 6:24 p.m. lasting over a two hour window.  The launch could be delayed in following days until April 6. 

NASA now expects to land on the surface of Mars as early as 2028 during the Artemis IV mission. Before then, Artemis III astronauts are expected to dock with a commercial lunar lander, possibly from Spacex or Blue Origin, in Earth orbit in 2027.

Coming soon: a review of sensors aboard Orion, the crew and service module in the Artemis II mission.