NASA astronauts are about to embark on a journey around the moon, marking humanity's return to the vicinity of the moon for the first time in half a century.

The astronauts of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are scheduled to launch on Wednesday, embarking on a 10-day journey around the moon, marking the first time in over half a century that humans have returned to the vicinity of the moon. The crew will be on board the Orion spacecraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin, which is placed on top of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket manufactured by Boeing, and is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:24 p.m. local time. This mission is a long-delayed critical space rehearsal for the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, and also marks the most significant milestone of NASA's longstanding Artemis moon landing program. The goal of this program is to send humans to the moon as early as 2028.