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Artemis II, Nasa’s first crewed lunar rocket in more than half a century, prepares for launch – watch and follow live | Space
The Artemis II mission
Artemis II is the second flight, and first crewed mission, of the core component of Nasa’s Moon to Mars initiative, which aims to build a permanent, habitable lunar base as a prelude to eventual human flights to the red planet.
Assuming a successful launch on Wednesday, it will be a 10-day fly past of the moon, with no landing, in which the four astronauts will travel farther into space, just short of 253,000 miles, than any human beings before them.
The objectives are to test crucial spacecraft and life support systems, monitor extensively the astronauts’ health during a long-duration spaceflight, specifically the enhanced effects of radiation and microgravity, and confirm the ability of the Orion capsule to withstand temperatures up to 3,000F (1650C) at re-entry.
The highlight for the crew will be on flight day six, when Orion will slingshot around the moon and pass between 4,000 and 6,000 miles from the lunar surface, providing opportunities to photograph the moon’s south pole where the next human landing will take place as early as 2028.
Nasa has published a comprehensive, day-by-day schedule of the Artemis II mission timeline here.
Key events
What to know about the spacecraft
The Artemis II launchpad stack comprises Nasa’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and the Orion crew capsule, a five-meter diameter craft with the interior volume similar to that of a small camper van.
The height of the rocket assembly is 322ft (98m), slightly higher than the Statue of Liberty (305ft), and London’s Elizabeth Tower, commonly known as Big Ben, at 316ft.
Four RS-25 engines, remnants from Nasa’s space shuttle program that ended in 2011, will provide almost nine million pounds of thrust at lift-off, making SLS the most powerful fully operational space rocket in history.
Two solid rocket boosters and the main tank fuel fall away after main engine cut-off and stage separation early in flight, and Orion will be powered to the moon by the European Service Module (ESM), built by Airbus for the European Space Agency.
The ESM will separate from Orion about 45 minutes before the crew’s splashdown in the Pacific ocean at the end of the 10-day mission. Unlike the solid rocket boosters at the start of the mission, which will be recovered, the ESM is designed to burn up on re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere.
The Artemis II crew will be arriving at the launchpad shortly after an emotional farewell with their families at the Neil A Armstrong operations and checkout building at Kennedy Space Center.
They posed for photographs and waved their goodbyes with heart signs and air kisses, not being allowed to hug their loved ones because of quarantine protocols.
Commander Reid Wiseman thanked the throngs who gathered to see them off. “It’s a great day for us. It’s a great day for this team,” Wiseman called out.
The astronauts boarded a silver astrovan for the journey to launchpad 39B, with military helicopters overhead and several security vehicles following at a close distance.
The next launch milestone will be the crew walking around and checking out their 322ft (98m) rocket ship from the ground before ascending in the elevator to the Orion crew capsule.
The Artemis II mission
Artemis II is the second flight, and first crewed mission, of the core component of Nasa’s Moon to Mars initiative, which aims to build a permanent, habitable lunar base as a prelude to eventual human flights to the red planet.
Assuming a successful launch on Wednesday, it will be a 10-day fly past of the moon, with no landing, in which the four astronauts will travel farther into space, just short of 253,000 miles, than any human beings before them.
The objectives are to test crucial spacecraft and life support systems, monitor extensively the astronauts’ health during a long-duration spaceflight, specifically the enhanced effects of radiation and microgravity, and confirm the ability of the Orion capsule to withstand temperatures up to 3,000F (1650C) at re-entry.
The highlight for the crew will be on flight day six, when Orion will slingshot around the moon and pass between 4,000 and 6,000 miles from the lunar surface, providing opportunities to photograph the moon’s south pole where the next human landing will take place as early as 2028.
Nasa has published a comprehensive, day-by-day schedule of the Artemis II mission timeline here.
First photos of Artemis II crew in their space suits
The first photos of the Artemis II crew on launch day are appearing on the news wires now. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and Nasa astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch were posing for pictures with their families before they’re expected to set off on a 10-day journey around the moon.
They were seen smiling and waving to the crowd ahead of the launch later expected later today:
Who is on the Artemis II crew
Three of Artemis II’s four crew members are Nasa astronauts and spaceflight veterans extended stays on the international space station (ISS).
Commander Reid Wiseman, 50, is a retired US Navy captain from Baltimore, Maryland. He was selected as an astronaut in 2009, spent six months on the ISS from May to November 2014, and is a former chief of Nasa’s astronaut office.
He has two daughters with his wife Carroll, who died in 2020 from cancer. He has said he is taking a notepad and pencil with him to space to record his thoughts during the mission.
Pilot Victor Glover, 49, will become the first astronaut of color to fly beyond lower Earth orbit. From Pomona, California, he joined the astronaut corps in 2013, and flew to the ISS on the maiden operational flight of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule in 2020.
He is married with four children. His callsign, Ike, is an acronym bestowed lovingly by colleagues for “I know everything”. Glover said he will carry his Bible, wedding ring, and book of quotations from Apollo 8 astronaut Rusty Schweickart.
Mission specialist Christina Koch (pronounced Cook), 47, is already a record holder for the longest single spaceflight by an American woman, 328 days on the ISS from March 2019 to February 2020.
Koch, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a married engineer who became an astronaut in 2013. She will become the first woman to travel to the moon. Her personal items in space will be handwritten notes from loved ones.
Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, 50, is the only non-American crew member, and has no previous spaceflight experience. A fighter pilot in the Royal Canadian air force, Hansen was recruited to the country’s astronaut training program in 2009.
Hansen is married with three children. Born in London, Ontario, he plans to take with him four moon-shaped pendants for his family, and maple syrup and cookies.
How to watch the Artemis II mission
Unlike the Apollo moon landings from 1969 to 1972, when millions of people had to gather around small TV sets to watch missions unfold in often grainy and ghosting black and white video, every moment of Artemis II will be a fully online, high-resolution multimedia experience.
The Guardian has a live feed at the top of this blog you can follow.
Nasa has countless webpages dedicated to every aspect of the flight from its homepage at nasa.gov, and the space agency has a significant presence on numerous social media platforms including X, YouTube, Instagram and Twitch.
Additionally, it runs a free, on-demand streaming channel, Nasa+, which will provide live coverage from before launch to after splashdown, including all press briefings. It also has a dedicated app for smart devices.
The Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman maintains a prominent social media presence, and has been posting prolifically ahead of the flight, although it remains to be seen how often he is able to update during the mission itself.
Also worth keeping an eye on is the X account of the new Nasa administrator Jared Isaacman.
How the launch is expected to unfold
A two-hour launch window for Artemis II opens at 6.24pm EST (11.24pm BST) after an almost four-hour fueling process. Nasa’s final weather briefing on Tuesday reported an 80% chance of favorable conditions for launch.
Mission managers will be watching closely data from launchpad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center, as well as real-time and forecast weather information. Any last-minute technical issue or weather violation can cause a scrubbed launch attempt, or a delay, right up to T-0 (the moment the countdown clock reaches zero).
After lift-off, the 322ft (98m) rocket will take about 6.5 seconds to clear its tower, and accelerate quickly to 17,500mph and an altitude of about 531,000ft. Once there, main engine cut-off and core stage separation take place a little more than eight minutes into flight.
The real journey to the moon begins on flight day two, after several revolutions in Earth’s orbit, with the so-called translunar injection burn, the final major engine firing of the mission.
Welcome to our launch blog for Wednesday’s scheduled launch of Artemis II, Nasa’s first crewed lunar rocket in more than half a century that is set to lift-off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 6.24pm ET (11.24 BST).
I’m Richard Luscombe at the press site in Cape Canaveral with a close-up view of launchpad 39B, where the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion crew capsule will depart on their 10-day, 685,000-mile journey to the moon and back.
Hundreds of thousands of spectators will pack the beaches and causeways of Florida’s space coast to watch humans travel beyond lower Earth orbit for the first time since the final Apollo mission in December 1972.
Three Nasa astronauts, Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, join Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency on a mission that will slingshot around, but not land on the moon, before returning to a Pacific ocean splashdown.
Follow our coverage as we bring you the latest from the space center leading up to the opening of tonight’s two-hour launch window.
Read our preview of the mission here:
UK News
Resident doctors begin longest strike yet as Streeting accuses BMA of hypocrisy over pay – UK politics live | Politics
Wes Streeting says strikes by resident doctors have cost country £3bn over past 3 years as fresh walkout starts
Good morning. Resident doctors in English hospitals started a six-day strike at 7am this morning. Many of them will continue to work, but there will be enough of them joining the strike to have a significant impact on the care hospitals can deliver. It is the 15th resident doctors (who used to be known as junior doctors) have been on stage since they launched a campaign in 2023 to get their pay back to the equivalent level it used to be before austerity kicked in after the financial crash.
This morning Wes Streeting, the health secretary, deployed a new statistic in his PR battle against the BMA, the doctors’ union organised the strikes. He confirmed a figure highlighted in the Daily Mail’s splash saying strikes by resident doctors have now cost the country £3bn.
In an interview with the Today programme, asked if that was an official government figure, Streeting replied:
We think that strikes cost £50m a day. And so that is, an accurate reflection of the cost of these strikes.
But, when it was put to him the BMA is saying that £3bn is about what it would have cost to give the resident doctors the pay rise they are demaning, Streeting would not accept this. He replied:
What is true is that in order to deliver a full pay restoration back to 2008 levels, using the RPI account of inflation, it would cost in the order of £3bn a year.
Let’s then assume that other NHS staff would understandably demand the same. Then that cost would be more like £30bn a year. That is more than the entire cost of the Ministry of Justice’s entire budget for running the criminal justice system.
Now, this goes to the heart of the intransigence of the BMA. Despite being the biggest winner by a country mile of public sector pay increases – since this government came in, 28.9% is what they got from us – within weeks of taking office, they still went out on strike.
Andrew Gregory and Peter Walker have more from what Streeting has been saying about the strike here.
I will post more from Streeting’s broadcast interviews this morning shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
7am: Resident doctors started a six-day strike in England. (Rather, some of them did – in the past, many doctors have chosen to work rather than to join the BMA strike.)
9.15am: John Swinney, SNP leader and Scottish first minister, holds a campaign event focused on fuel prices. Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, is holding a campaign event focused on pothole policy (at 9.30am), and Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative leader, is launching his manifesto (at 2pm).
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Morning: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Newcastle.
12.30pm: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding a press conference in Warwickshire.
Afternoon: Military planners from around 35 countries interested in plans to keep the strait of Hormuz open after the Iran war ends meet to discuss options at the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, north-west London.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Key events
Streeting accuses BMA of hypocrisy, saying it’s giving its staff pay rise well below what resident doctors offered
In his interviews this morning Wes Streeting, the health secretary, accused the BMA of hypocrisy over pay because the organisation is offering its own staff far less than the resident doctors are demanding.
He told BBC Breakfast:
And here’s the real kicker; having rejected this deal because the pay offer apparently wasn’t good enough at 4.9%, the BMA are offering their own staff 2.75% on affordability grounds.
Why does the BMA think they can get away with telling their own staff they only get 2.75% because that’s all they can afford, whilst rejecting a 4.9% offer because that’s all the government can afford.
It seems to me, the BMA aren’t willing to put their hands in their own pockets to pay their own staff, but they’re very happy to try and fleece your viewers, asking them to pay even more in tax than I think this country can afford.
He made the same point in an interview on Today, explaining what the BMA was doing and adding: “There’s a word for that.”
In a separate interview on the Today programme, Jack Fletcher, chair of its resident doctors committee, said that he was not responsible for what the BMA paid its staff and that he supported their right to go on strike.
Wes Streeting says strikes by resident doctors have cost country £3bn over past 3 years as fresh walkout starts
Good morning. Resident doctors in English hospitals started a six-day strike at 7am this morning. Many of them will continue to work, but there will be enough of them joining the strike to have a significant impact on the care hospitals can deliver. It is the 15th resident doctors (who used to be known as junior doctors) have been on stage since they launched a campaign in 2023 to get their pay back to the equivalent level it used to be before austerity kicked in after the financial crash.
This morning Wes Streeting, the health secretary, deployed a new statistic in his PR battle against the BMA, the doctors’ union organised the strikes. He confirmed a figure highlighted in the Daily Mail’s splash saying strikes by resident doctors have now cost the country £3bn.
In an interview with the Today programme, asked if that was an official government figure, Streeting replied:
We think that strikes cost £50m a day. And so that is, an accurate reflection of the cost of these strikes.
But, when it was put to him the BMA is saying that £3bn is about what it would have cost to give the resident doctors the pay rise they are demaning, Streeting would not accept this. He replied:
What is true is that in order to deliver a full pay restoration back to 2008 levels, using the RPI account of inflation, it would cost in the order of £3bn a year.
Let’s then assume that other NHS staff would understandably demand the same. Then that cost would be more like £30bn a year. That is more than the entire cost of the Ministry of Justice’s entire budget for running the criminal justice system.
Now, this goes to the heart of the intransigence of the BMA. Despite being the biggest winner by a country mile of public sector pay increases – since this government came in, 28.9% is what they got from us – within weeks of taking office, they still went out on strike.
Andrew Gregory and Peter Walker have more from what Streeting has been saying about the strike here.
I will post more from Streeting’s broadcast interviews this morning shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
7am: Resident doctors started a six-day strike in England. (Rather, some of them did – in the past, many doctors have chosen to work rather than to join the BMA strike.)
9.15am: John Swinney, SNP leader and Scottish first minister, holds a campaign event focused on fuel prices. Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, is holding a campaign event focused on pothole policy (at 9.30am), and Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative leader, is launching his manifesto (at 2pm).
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Morning: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Newcastle.
12.30pm: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding a press conference in Warwickshire.
Afternoon: Military planners from around 35 countries interested in plans to keep the strait of Hormuz open after the Iran war ends meet to discuss options at the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, north-west London.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
He said his goal was to ‘come to London and present a show of change’ through his music.
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Bangladesh is battling its worse measles outbreak in years, with more than 100 children dead amid a rise in unvaccinated infants.
The government, in partnership with the United Nations, has begun conducting an emergency measles-rubella vaccination drive for children across the country, after more than 900 cases were confirmed since March.
Measles is a highly contagious airborne disease causing fever, respiratory symptoms and a characteristic rash and can sometimes have severe or fatal complications, especially in young children.
While vast gains have been made in mass immunisation against measles, there has been a recent resurgence, attributed to falling vaccine rates, with more than 11m cases recorded globally in 2024. There was a fatal outbreak in the UK this year, which killed two people, and states across the US have also been grappling with a deadly spread, with more than 2,000 cases registered in 2025, the worst in three decades.
In Bangladesh, the rise in cases that began in March is the worst the south Asian country has experienced for years. While Bangladesh has a child immunisation programme for measles, the newly elected government said mismanagement by the previous regimes had led to programme gaps in vulnerable areas and a shortage of the vaccine stockpiles. According to the UN, 95% of the population has to be vaccinated in order to stop the disease from spreading.
This month’s emergency drive will focus on children aged six months to five years old in high-risk districts and will then be expanded out across the country.
One-third of those affected are below the age of nine months, which is when they would usually be eligible for a measles vaccine, which experts said showed a concerning gap in the programme.
“This resurgence highlights critical immunity gaps, particularly among zero-dose and under-vaccinated children, while infections among infants under nine months, who are not yet eligible for routine vaccination, are especially alarming,” said Rana Flowers, the representative for Unicef in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh’s newly appointed health minister, Sardar Mohammed Sakhawat Husain, told parliament on Monday that the political turmoil of Bangladesh over the past two years, after the toppling of prime minister Sheikh Hasina in an uprising in 2024, had led to disrupted vaccine procurement and a failure to conduct the usual measles vaccinations campaigns. The current government only came to power in elections in February.
Authorities are advising parents to go to hospitals whenever someone is suspected to have measles or even just has a high temperature, rather than relying on local pharmacies.
Since the launch of a massive immunisation campaign in 1979, Bangladesh has raised the coverage of fully immunised children from just 2% to 81.6%. However, experts have continued to warn that there are still stark discrepancies in measles vaccine coverage in the country of 170 million people.
In a statement, Unicef said the current measles surge was caused by multiple factors. “Bangladesh has a strong history of high immunisation coverage, but even small disruptions can lead to the gradual accumulation of immunity gaps over time,” said the organisation.
Resident doctors begin longest strike yet as Streeting accuses BMA of hypocrisy over pay – UK politics live | Politics
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