CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The astronauts acceptable to go the archetypal lunar visitors successful much than fractional a period arrived astatine their motorboat tract Friday, joining the towering rocket that stands poised to blast disconnected adjacent week and nonstop them astir the moon.
Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman flew successful with his 3 crewmates from Houston. It was the closest they've travel to launching. Fuel leaks and different rocket issues caused 2 months of hold and treble hangar-to-pad rollouts.
NASA's caller head Jared Isaacman greeted the astronauts arsenic they emerged from their T-38 grooming jets astatine Kennedy Space Center. Besides Wiseman, the unit includes NASA's Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canada's Jeremy Hansen.
NASA is aiming for liftoff arsenic soon arsenic Wednesday. The abstraction bureau has the archetypal six days of April to motorboat the Space Rocket System rocket earlier lasting down for astir a month.
The Orion capsule atop the rocket volition transportation the 4 connected NASA's archetypal astronaut moonshot since Apollo 17 successful 1972. The 10-day formation volition extremity with a Pacific splashdown.
Earlier this week, Isaacman outlined a caller program for the satellite basal that NASA intends to physique nether the Artemis program. The upcoming moonshot volition beryllium followed successful 2027 by a lunar lander demo successful orbit astir Earth and successful 2028 by 1 and perchance 2 lunar landings by astronauts.
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