{"id":569359,"date":"2026-03-29T20:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T20:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/569359\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T20:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T20:53:12","slug":"artemis-ii-moon-mission-launch-set-for-april-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/569359\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II moon mission launch set for April 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a style=\"display:block\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/Q72E4TT75ZA6REWUVWMTJVE6HU.JPG?auth=5f51bbe07f821bc46dc736d25d1333ec1fc5c81fef6dd658052ad7f3b40c0079&amp;width=600&amp;height=400&amp;quality=80&amp;smart=true\" aria-haspopup=\"true\" data-photo-viewer-index=\"0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"figcap-text\">People photograph NASA&#8217;s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion crew capsule ahead of the Artemis II mission launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 29.Brendan McDermid\/Reuters<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">NASA managers responsible for launching the Artemis II mission say their rocket is ready to fly and \u2013 unless weather intervenes \u2013 they are in a good position to send four astronauts on a 10 day trip around the moon this Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">After several delays, the long-awaited journey is now as close as it\u2019s come to getting under way. If systems on the ground and aboard the rocket continue to perform as expected during final checks, a two-day countdown period will commence on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">On a Sunday afternoon that brought strong winds and some rain to the coastal region, mission managers said they are monitoring weather predictions for mid-week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">If conditions remain favourable on that day, the launch will be targeted for 6:24 p.m. ET, but could be delayed by as much two hours if necessary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text mv-16 l-inset text-pb-8\" data-sophi-feature=\"interstitial\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/canada\/science\/article-artemis-ii-nasa-rocket-moon-launch-jeremy-hansen\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">How Canada came to be part of Artemis II\u2019s historic mission to the moon<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">\u201cRight now we\u2019re forecast to be 80 per cent go on Wednesday,\u201d said ground systems program manager Shawn Quinn during a briefing with reporters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Excitement is building at the Kennedy Space Center for the historic mission slated to be the first since 1972 to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit and into lunar space.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">The objective of Artemis II is to provide the first end-to-end test of NASA\u2019s lunar transport system with people on board. While the mission does not include a moon landing, Artemis II is seen as a critical step that will enable an ambitious schedule of future flights, with landings on the moon as early as 2028.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Canada\u2019s Jeremy Hansen is a mission specialist on Artemis II and making the trip together with his U.S. crewmates, commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch. All four astronauts arrived in Florida on Friday in advance of a six-day launch window that opens on April 1.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Based on turnaround time at the launch pad it is expected that up to four launch attempts could be within that window. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text mv-16 l-inset text-pb-8\" data-sophi-feature=\"interstitial\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/canada\/science\/article-artemis-ii-nasa-moon-mission-launch-how-to-watch\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">What to know about NASA\u2019s historic Artemis II moon mission<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: People photograph NASA&#8217;s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion crew capsule&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-569359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569359","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=569359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}