![\"Photographers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/photographers-setup-remote-cameras-near-nasas-artermis-ii-mo-MIZAJJ74HRBGJF7WI7OQXC7VLQ.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNASA began the countdown today for humanity\u2019s first launch to the moon in 53 years.<\/p>\n
The 32-story Space Launch System rocket is poised to blast off Wednesday evening (local time) with four astronauts. After a day in orbit around Earth, their Orion capsule will propel them to the moon and back. There are no stops \u2014 just a quick U-turn around the moon. The nearly 10-day flight will end with a splashdown in the Pacific.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team has worked extremely hard to get us to this moment,\u201d said launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. “Certainly all indications are right now we are in excellent, excellent shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
Managers said the rocket is doing well following the latest round of repairs. Forecasters said the weather should cooperate.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photographers setup remote cameras near NASA’s Artermis II moon rocket on Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s Artemis II mission should have soared in February, but was grounded by hydrogen fuel leaks. The leaks were fixed, but then a helium pressurisation line became clogged, forcing a return to the hangar late last month. The rocket returned to the pad 1 1\/2 weeks ago, and its US-Canadian crew arrived at the launch site on Friday (local time).<\/p>\n
Unlike Apollo, which sent only men to the moon from 1968 through 1972, Artemis\u2019 debut crew includes a woman, person of colour and a non-US citizen.<\/p>\n
Artemis II\u2019s pilot Victor Glover said over the weekend that he wants young people to see them and think, \u201cGirl power and that\u2019s awesome, and that young brown boys and girls can look at me and go \u2018Hey, he looks like me and he\u2019s doing what???\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
At the same time, Glover, who is Black, looks forward to when \u201done day we don\u2019t have to talk about these firsts\u201d and exploring the cosmos becomes an all-encompassing \u201chuman history\u201d.<\/p>\n
NASA has the first six days of April to launch Artemis II before standing down until the end of the month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA began the countdown today for humanity\u2019s first launch to the moon in 53 years. The 32-story Space…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392,145],"class_list":["post-356431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}