The countdown has begun.It has been more than 53 years since anyone has traveled anywhere near the moon. The Artemis II mission, sitting on the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is to swing around the moon without landing. It is the next step in NASA’s plans to not only put astronauts back on the surface of the moon in a couple of years but also build a lunar base for a continuing presence. At 4:44 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, the iconic clock at the press site at Kennedy started ticking down, a bit over two days before the two-hour launch window opens at 6:24 p.m. on Wednesday. “We’ll fly when this hardware is ready, and we’ll see if it’s ready to go in just a couple of days,” Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the launch director, said during a news conference on Monday. “But certainly, all indications are right now, we are in excellent, excellent shape.” We plan to begin live coverage of the 10-day mission at around 7 a.m. on Wednesday with journalists reporting from Florida and Houston. And stay tuned until Friday, when we’ll send out an additional Science Times newsletter with the rest of this week’s science and health news. Email usLet us know how we’re doing at sciencenewsletter@nytimes.com. We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Make a friend’s day: Forward this email.
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