CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA test director Jeff Spaulding does not want to hear jokes on April Fools’ Day. He doesn’t want pranks. He just wants to send people to the moon.
This is not a punchline. NASA is counting down to launch four astronauts around the moon on Artemis 2, a 10-day trip that will lift off a bit before sunset tomorrow, which is April 1 — a holiday for pranksters. But NASA is staying serious.
NASA’s Artemis 2 mission is scheduled to lift off from Pad 39B here at the Kennedy Space Center at 6:24 p.m. EDT (2224 GMT). The weather looks promising, with an 80% chance of good conditions at launch time.
The countdown clock is already ticking down toward the launch, with NASA’s livestream set to go live at 12:50 p.m. EDT (1650 GMT). You’ll be able to watch it live on Space.com and follow our live Artemis 2 mission updates.
Artemis 2 will launch NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen around the moon in the first crewed flight test of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. If the flight goes smoothly, Artemis 2 will pave the way for NASA’s eventual Artemis 4 moon landing by astronauts in 2028. The space agency wants to start building a permanent moon base by 2032.
“We are going back,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote on social media Monday (March 30). Isaacman unveiled an ambitious schedule of moon landings and launches for the Artemis program last week in NASA’s Ignition event at its headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The run-up to the Artemis 2 launch has appeared extremely smooth, compared with the hiccups and glitches that seemed legion during NASA’s Artemis 1 uncrewed test flight in 2022.
“You get to a point where you have found and corrected as many things as maybe are available to you, and so the things that we find out are quite small and much less significant than we had in the past,” Spaulding said. “So I hope that’s a really good sign, but we still have the same amount of vigilance.”
So no pranks, only vigilance for NASA’s April Fools’ Day launch of Artemis 2.
In perhaps a bit of serendipitous timing, Artemis 2 is also launching during the April full moon. It’s a Pink Moon, in case you were wondering, and it’s something that’s on Spaulding’s mind.
“I look up at the moon quite regularly, thinking about this mission and upcoming missions that are going to be coming downstream. I’m excited about going to the moon,” Spaulding said. “Part of the reason that I’m actually still here is to continue to put humans into space, and to get us back into this launch mode so that we can continue to explore, and establish a moon base, and then continue to work towards getting to Mars.”
<em>Visit Space.com every day this week for complete coverage and live updates of NASA’s Artemis 2 mission to the moon. If you’re looking for ways to express your excitement, our Artemis 2 gear guide may have just what you need.