Overview
- The mission’s two-hour launch window, which opens Wednesday at 6:24 p.m. Eastern, includes backup dates through early April.
- Orion will spend about 10 days in deep space on a free-return path that swings around the Moon and brings the crew home without a landing.
- The four-person crew is Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Jeremy Hansen, a lineup that marks firsts for a woman, a Black astronaut and a non‑U.S. flyer on a lunar voyage.
- Forecasts call for roughly an 80% chance of acceptable weather, though thick clouds or strong winds could still push the attempt to a later window.
- Argentina’s ATENEA CubeSat will ride as a secondary payload to test radiation levels and long‑range communications in deep space.