NASA gives up on Artemis II mission ahead of launch day

 After weeks of fuel leaks and other issues, NASA faces a trouble-free countdown for the Artemis II mission, marking astronauts' first trip to the moon in over half a century.

Officials report the moon rocket is performing well, with forecasters predicting an 80% chance of favorable weather for the evening launch.

"Everybody's pretty excited and understands the significance of this launch," said senior test director Jeff Spaulding. The four astronauts, the first lunar visitors since Apollo 17 in 1972, will zip around the moon without landing or orbiting, then return.

It will be the most ambitious crewed space mission since the Apollo program more than 50 years ago, with the four-person crew set to travel around the Moon on a 10-day journey.

Hydrogen fuel leaks and clogged helium lines caused prior delays.

Confident these problems are fixed, the launch team plans to fuel the 32-story Space Launch System rocket Wednesday morning for its evening send-off.

The four-person crew consists of Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

“The nation and the world has been waiting a long time to do this again,” mission commander Reid Wiseman told reporters from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida over the weekend.

They arrived in Florida on Friday, having begun their quarantine to shield themselves from viruses in Texas on 18 March.

The 10-day mission will see them fly around the Moon, taking them further from Earth than any human has ever travelled.

The Moon’s orbital position in early April means the Artemis II crew will have to travel further than the Apollo 13 crew.

There will be several other firsts for the mission, including the first woman, the first non-white person, and the first non-American to fly to the Moon.

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