Artemis II astronauts say goodbye to their families before moon launch | News World

The Artemis II astronauts have waved goodbye to their families and friends as they prepare to launch on their voyage around the moon.

Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch are about to embark on their 10-day trip to the moon and back for the first time in 53 years.

Glover was seen mouthing ‘I love you’ to each of his family members wearing matching t-shirts before the voyagers boarded a shuttle bus on their way to the launch pad 39B.

The launch now looks likely to go ahead after many setbacks with the crew all in their flight suits and good weather conditions.

Waving to family, colleagues and news photographers, the crew boarded the so-called astrovan for the 9-mile ride to the launch pad and their awaiting SLS rocket.

Before their highly anticipated walkout, commander Reid Wiseman and his crew played a quick card game with NASA’s chief astronaut Scott Tingle. It’s a preflight tradition since the space shuttle era.

Losing is good: It means the astronaut has gotten rid of all bad luck before launching.

The four thanked the suit techs and posed for photos, keeping a safe distance from many of the bystanders to avoid germs.

They then went down the elevator at the Neil Armstrong Operations & Checkout Building and walk out to a barrage of cameras and cheers.

What is Artemis?

Artemis, Nasa’s return-to-the-moon programme, has been plagued by delays, technical hiccups and budget cuts for years.

This has all but denied generations of astronauts their chance at walking where Neil Armstrong once did in 1969.

The last time humans were casually strolling – or moonwalking, we suppose – on the moon was for the 1972 Apollo 17 mission.

Donald Trump made bringing American space boots back to the lunar surface a goal during his first administration, signing Artemis in 2017.

Space officials were tasked with working with commercial companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build a lunar-orbiting Gateway outpost.

The project’s first mission, known as Artemis I, involved an uncrewed Orion capsule doing a 1.3 million-mile lap around the moon in 2022.

Unlike the Apollo missions, the second Artemis mission won’t actually land on the moon.

Nevertheless, it will be the first to leave Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in 53 years.

It will also be the first time that astronauts launch on top of NASA’s giant Space Launch System rocket and then swing around the Moon inside the Orion crew capsule.

This equipment was one of the main reasons Artemis II was postponed by more than a year, with NASA citing issues with Orion’s life support system.

This is a breaking news story… more to follow…

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