Nasa has said the long-delayed launch of Artemis II, the first crewed flyby mission to the moon in more than 50 years, could happen as soon as 1 April.
“We are on track for a launch as early as April 1, and we are working toward that date,” Lori Glaze, a senior Nasa official, told a press conference on Thursday. Technical difficulties delayed a launch originally expected in February.
“It’s a test flight, and it is not without risk, but our team and our hardware are ready,” she said. “Just keep in mind we still have work [to do].”
The US space agency announced in February a sudden revamp of the Artemis programme, including the addition of a test mission before an eventual lunar landing.
The first launch window would be Wednesday 1 April at 6.24pm (22.24 GMT), with several others available in the following days.
“We would anticipate on the order of about four opportunities within that six-day period,” Glaze said.
The rocket will be crewed by three American astronauts – the mission commander, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch – and the Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
Nasa diagrams indicate Artemis II will circumnavigate Earth before leaving orbit to travel to the moon, without landing, before returning to Earth and splashing down in the ocean.
Nasa said the crew’s proximity to the moon would depend on when they launched because the moon would “be in a different spot for each of the possible launch dates”. The distance will range from 4,000-6,000 miles (6,450-9,65o km) above the lunar surface.
The first Artemis flew much closer to the moon, 80 miles above the surface, but Nasa said Artemis II would still go “tens of thousands of miles closer than any human has been in more than 50 years”.
“At this distance the moon will appear to the crew to be about the size of a basketball held at arm’s length.”
The mission is to be followed by Artemis III, with the goal of “rendezvous in low-Earth orbit” of at least one lunar lander.
The next phase, Artemis IIII, will aim for a lunar landing in early 2028, after the US president, Donald Trump, announced during his first term that he wanted Americans to set foot on the moon again.
