Overview
- NASA's four-person Artemis II crew is in final launch prep in Florida with liftoff targeted for April 1 from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39B.
- The roughly 10-day flight will loop around the Moon on a free-return path to test Orion's life support, navigation, communications, and heat shield, marking the first human trip beyond low Earth orbit since 1972.
- Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen will ride Orion atop the Space Launch System rocket.
- Engineers repaired a liquid hydrogen leak from an earlier fueling test and a separate helium flow fault in the upper stage after a rollback, and NASA does not plan another full wet dress rehearsal.
- The agency has backup launch windows through April 6, framing this test as a step toward sustained lunar operations and, later, crewed missions to Mars.