For the first time since 1972, NASA is sending astronauts to the moon. (But not to land there.) The mission, Artemis II, is scheduled to launch on Wednesday at 6:24 p.m. Eastern time. A giant rocket will lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the crew of four astronauts — three Americans and one Canadian — will embark on a 10-day journey around the moon and back to Earth. While the astronauts will not touch the moon — at their closest, they will be thousands of miles away — a successful Artemis II mission is a necessary step toward returning to the moon’s surface. The mission will test life support and other systems of Orion, a space capsule that is to be America’s vehicle for lunar journeys.

Full report : Four astronauts — three Americans and one Canadian — are scheduled to launch at 6:24 p.m. Eastern on the first crewed journey to the moon since 1972.