{"id":565593,"date":"2026-03-28T01:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T01:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/565593\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T01:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T01:52:10","slug":"artemis-ii-astronauts-arrive-at-florida-launch-site-for-first-moon-trip-in-53-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/565593\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II astronauts arrive at Florida launch site for first moon trip in 53 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The astronauts set to become the first lunar visitors<\/a> in more than half a century arrived at their launch site Friday, joining the towering rocket<\/a> that stands poised to blast off next week and send them around the moon.<\/p>\n

Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman flew in with his three crewmates from Houston. It was the closest they\u2019ve come to launching. Fuel leaks and other rocket issues<\/a> caused two months of delay and double hangar-to-pad rollouts.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s new administrator Jared Isaacman greeted the astronauts as they emerged from their T-38 training jets at Kennedy Space Center. Besides Wiseman, the crew includes NASA\u2019s Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canada\u2019s Jeremy Hansen. The welcoming committee also included the Canadian Space Agency\u2019s president, Lisa Campbell, dozens of NASA managers and more than 100 journalists.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, let\u2019s go to the moon!\u201d Wiseman shouted to the crowd. \u201cI think the nation and the world have been waiting a long time to do this again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all fired up to go do this,\u201d Hansen added. \u201cSo \u2018Allons-y!\u2019 \u201d \u2014 French for let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n

NASA is aiming for liftoff as soon as Wednesday. The space agency has the first six days of April to launch the Space Rocket System rocket before standing down for nearly a month. <\/p>\n

Wiseman stressed there\u2019s no guarantee they will launch in early April as planned, and that it could slip to May or even June. The Space Launch System rocket has soared only once before; the crew-less test flight to the moon was back in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s this business,\u201d Glover said of all the delays. \u201cIt will go when the engines light at T-zero, and we totally understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Orion capsule atop the rocket will carry the four on NASA\u2019s first astronaut moonshot since Apollo 17 in 1972. The 10-day flight will end with a Pacific splashdown.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Isaacman outlined a fresh plan for the moon base that NASA intends to build under the Artemis program. The upcoming moonshot will be followed in 2027 by a lunar lander demo in orbit around Earth and in 2028 by one and possibly two lunar landings by astronauts.<\/p>\n

Koch said the changes are motivating and inspiring. \u201cWe\u2019re in a relay race \u2026 and if nothing else this just fired us up for that all the more.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n

Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The astronauts set to become the first lunar visitors in more than half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-565593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}