Live coverage: Artemis 2 astronauts head to Florida ahead of April 1 launch attempt

The four astronauts of the Artemis 2 mission head to the Sunshine State on Friday for their much anticipated mission to loop around the Moon and back. The quartet will depart from the Johnson Space Center in Texas, flanked by colleagues from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are set to fly to Florida on T-38 jets, touching down at the Launch and Landing Facility — formerly the Shuttle Landing Facility — around 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 UTC).

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about 10 minutes prior to their anticipated arrival.

The crew will be the first humans to venture out beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. When the Artemis 2 mission takes flight, it will begin a ten-day journey around the Moon and back.

Artemis 2 is scheduled to launch no earlier than Wednesday, April 1, at 6:24 p.m. EDT (2224 UTC). There is a six-day launch window that extends through April 6.

The mission features a free-return trajectory, meaning their Orion spacecraft, named ‘Integrity,’ will not enter lunar orbit. Five days into the mission the crew will make their closest approach to the Moon.

They could also pass the record for the furthest humans have traveled from Earth, which was set by Apollo 13 at 248,655 miles, depending on the time and day they launch.

This will be the second mission to space for Wiseman, Glover, and Koch. Artemis 2 will not only be Hansen’s first spaceflight, but also the first time that a non-American will fly to the vicinity of the Moon.

The Artemis 2 mission is a test flight on the road towards establishing av sustained human presence on the Moon. During a day-long series of presentations this week, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and other members of agency leadership outlined the plans for establishing a Moon Base.

Isaacman’s administration made the decision to move away from a Moon-orbiting space station, called Gateway, and instead focus on surface operations. The administrator made a point to note that Gateway was “paused,” not “cancelled,” and that they may revisit the idea in the future.

As part of the revamping of the Artemis program, intending to increase flight cadence and preparation for a lunar landing no earlier than 2028, Isaacman also announced last month that the Artemis 3 mission will take place in Earth orbit and focus on docking with one or both of the landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin.

The new Artemis 3 is scheduled to launch in 2027 on a Space Launch System rocket. However, Isaacman said NASA is still working through the mission specifics, stating that the agency may not need to use their last remaining Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, the upper stage of the SLS rocket.

On March 12, Isaacman told Spaceflight Now that mission specifics should be made public within the next 60-90 days.