Artemis II launch: NASA’s moon mission blasts off today. Here’s what time to watch the livestream

NASA is going back to the moon, and you can watch the launch live. On April 1, the agency will stream the launch of its historic Artemis II mission.

Four astronauts—commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen—will be aboard the spacecraft for NASA’s first crewed moon mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.

NASA’s livestream will start at 12:50 p.m. ET on its YouTube channel and NASA+. The launch window opens at 6:24 p.m. ET and lasts for two hours. (There are launch opportunities every day from April 1 to April 6. At the time of this writing, conditions look good for launch on April 1.)

“Certainly all indications are right now we are in excellent, excellent shape,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said at a press conference on March 30. According to the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron, which provides official forecasts for the launch, the weather will be 80% favorable.

After Artemis II launches, the plan is to test out systems in Earth orbit for 24 hours before firing Orion’s main service engine; this engine burn will slingshot the crew around the moon. They’ll have a three-hour lunar flyby, during which they could be the first humans to observe the far side of the lunar surface with their own eyes.

According to lead flight director Emily Nelson, if the Artemis II launch is successful, the crew will travel 252,799 miles away from Earth, which will be the farthest humans have ever traveled. (The current record, 248,655 miles, is held by the Apollo 13 astronauts.) The spacecraft will splash down in the Pacific Ocean about 10 days after launch.

Among the other firsts of the Artemis II mission: Glover will be the first Black person to travel to the moon; Koch will be the first woman to do so; and Hansen, from Canada, will be the first non-U. S. citizen to accomplish the feat.

Artemis II is the second flight of a program aimed at building a sustainable presence on the moon. It’s the first crewed mission (Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight, splashed down in December 2022). Artemis II is designed to check out the Orion capsule’s life support systems, the spacesuits, radiation shielding, and more.

The next mission of the program, Artemis III, will test out the moon landing systems in Earth orbit, before a moon landing in 2028 with Artemis IV.

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