To see Artemis II make history, big crowds are coming to Space Coast

Hundreds of thousands of people will be looking up at the sky to watch Artemis II blast off from Kennedy Space Center as NASA astronauts return to the moon for the first time since 1972.

The launch window begins 6:24 p.m. on Wednesday. Four astronauts will fly on a 10-day mission around the moon in the Orion capsule, making history with the first Black man, the first woman and the first Canadian to ever fly on a moon mission.

The crew includes pilot Victor Glover, Commander Reid Wiseman and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. Future Artemis missions aim to have astronauts once again walk on the moon’s surface.

Ahead of the launch window, officials are monitoring breezy weather and cumulus clouds that could dump late afternoon showers Wednesday, said Mark Burger, the launch weather officer at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, during a news conference.

“It looks pretty good. Even if we have showers around, we have a two-hour launch window, we should be able to shoot the gap between those showers and none of these look particularly vigorous,” Burger told journalists.

Burger called it “a 20% chance of a no-go condition during the launch window.”

The good news?

“The optimistic side of me says that means 80% chance of go,” Burger said.

If conditions don’t allow a takeoff, Artemis II has other opportunities through April 6.

Across the Space Coast, many hotels are at capacity, local businesses are selling special merchandise and restaurants are adding Artemis-themed dishes on the menu, said Meagan Happel, a spokesperson for Visit Space Coast.

Happel said past big launches, such as Artemis I, drew 200,000 tourists to watch. It’s unclear to know how many people will be on hand in Cape Canaveral and around the coast for Artemis II’s launch, she said.

At Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, “all launch viewing packages are now sold out, underscoring the level of excitement surrounding this mission,” said interim Chief Operating Officer Howard Schwartz. “While we can’t share specific attendance numbers, we are preparing for significant crowds on launch day.”

To take part in the hype, the Visitor Complex is running a special Artemis exhibit and selling limited edition Artemis launch tees and other merchandise in its Space Shop, he said.

“Everybody’s pretty excited and understands the significance of this launch,” said senior NASA test director Jeff Spaulding at Tuesday’s briefing.

“Our team has been working amazingly hard through these weeks and months trying to get this vehicle ready to where it is. We’ve had some challenges. The team has done an outstanding job managing each and every one of those throughout all of this … to get to where we are today People are excited and ready to go on this first chapter on our way back to the moon since the 1970s.”