CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — After weeks of fuel leaks and other issues, NASA faced a trouble-free countdown Tuesday on the eve of astronauts' first trip to the moon in more than half a century.
Officials reported the moon rocket was doing well on the pad, and the weather looked promising. Forecasters put the odds of favorable conditions at 80%.
“Everybody's pretty excited and understands the significance of this launch,” said senior test director Jeff Spaulding.
The four astronauts assigned to the Artemis II mission will become the first lunar visitors since Apollo 17 in 1972. They’ll zip around the moon without landing or even orbiting, and come straight back.
It's the closest NASA has come to launching Artemis II. Hydrogen fuel leaks bumped the flight from February to March, then clogged helium lines pushed it to April. The space agency has only a handful of days every month to send the three Americans and one Canadian to the moon.
Confident that all of these problems are fixed, the launch team plans to begin fueling the 32-story Space Launch System rocket on Wednesday morning for an evening send-off.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
To watch launch live:
NASA’s Artemis II mission should have soared in February, but was grounded by hydrogen fuel leaks. The leaks were fixed, but then a helium pressurization 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 U.S.-Canadian crew arrived at the launch site on Friday.
Unlike Apollo, which sent only men to the moon from 1968 through 1972, Artemis’ debut crew includes a woman, person of color and a non-U.S. citizen.
Artemis II’s pilot Victor Glover said over the weekend that he wants young people to see them and think, “Girl power and that’s awesome, and that young brown boys and girls can look at me and go ‘Hey, he looks like me and he’s doing what???’”
At the same time, Glover, who is Black, looks forward to when ”one day we don’t have to talk about these firsts” and exploring the cosmos becomes an all-encompassing “human history.”
NASA has the first six days of April to launch Artemis II before standing down until the end of the month.
By the way, the next full moon is:
Wednesday, April 1, 2026 — the “Pink Moon”
- Peak illumination: 10:11–10:13 p.m. EDT
In UTC, that’s April 2 at ~02:11.
You’ll see it rise in the eastern sky around sunset, and it will appear full to the eye both the night before and the night after the exact peak.
The April full moon is traditionally called the Pink Moon, named after early spring wildflowers (not because it turns pink). It’s also the Paschal Moon, which determines the date of Easter. - Copilot
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.