NASA is aiming for an April 1 launch date for a mission that will send astronauts around the moon and back as part of its ambitious lunar landing program. Four astronauts will fly aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft,

NASA has finished a crucial step toward getting its Artemis II moon mission off the ground, and is now targeting early April to send four astronauts on an unprecedented path.

NASA said on Thursday that Artemis II had passed its flight readiness review and received the go-ahead to proceed toward a launch attempt on April 1, in what would be the first crewed mission around the Moon since the Apollo era.

Mission Control will be packed with experts, specialists and flight directors around-the-clock as NASA takes on its most complicated mission in more than half a century.

Astronaut safety and delays were top concerns in a new audit of NASA’s plans to use either SpaceX’s Starship or Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar landers on future Artemis missions,