After years of frustrating delays, NASA's Artemis II mission is about to launch astronauts to the lunar environment for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, taking the next big step toward the agency's ambitious goal of building humanity's first moon base.

Artemis II's record-breaking crew — which includes commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — is scheduled to lift off from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida as soon as April 1. They will ride into space aboard NASA's mega Space Launch System (SLS) rocket before slingshotting around the moon in the Orion capsule and eventually returning home around 10 days later.