Azernews.Az

by Alimat Aliyeva

A little over an hour before sunset on Florida’s Space Coast, up to 400,000 spectators on beaches and causeways are expected to look to the skies on Wednesday to witness a fiery spectacle not seen in nearly 54 years: a fully crewed NASA rocket returning humans to the moon, AzerNEWS reports, citing The Guardian.

The launch of Artemis II, scheduled for 6:24 p.m. ET—weather and any last-minute technical issues permitting—will mark the first time since December 1972’s Apollo 17 mission that humans have left low Earth orbit.

“The nation, and the world, has been waiting a long time to do this again,” said Reid Wiseman, a veteran NASA astronaut and commander of Artemis II, during a press briefing at Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, as the crew of three Americans and one Canadian entered quarantine ahead of launch.

The 10-day test flight will not land on the moon but is packed with historic milestones. Two crew members, NASA’s Christina Koch and Victor Glover, will become the first woman and the first person of color, respectively, to travel into cislunar space—the region between Earth’s orbit and the moon.

Experts note that Artemis II is not just a symbolic journey. Its success will pave the way for future missions to establish a sustainable human presence on and around the moon, potentially setting the stage for lunar bases and deep-space exploration beyond our planet. Many enthusiasts are already speculating that the next few years could bring a new era of lunar tourism and international collaboration in space.