NASA officials shared the final preparations for the Artemis II mission at a briefing at Kennedy Space Center Tuesday in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida — The US military has always been part of NASA’s human spaceflight program. The first astronauts were nearly all military pilots, and two of the four crew members set to fly around the Moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission were Navy test pilots before joining the astronaut corps.

December 11, 1998—launch day for the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) and the accompanying Polar Lander, both of which were part of a larger NASA initiative known as Mars Surveyor ’98. NASA had commissioned Lockheed Martin to design and build the MCO, which was was destined to gather data on Martian weather while communicating with the Polar Lander.

Artemis II is scheduled to blast off this week, but a former astronaut and heat-shield expert has major concerns.

NASA says it is on track to launch four astronauts around the moon. The crew will begin suiting up tomorrow morning before they head to the launch pad. NBC News’ Tom Costello reports from the Kennedy Space Center.

Forecasters reveal the chance of poor weather that could delay the planned Artemis II launch planned for Wednesday evening.

NASA's powerful Launch Abort System, designed to outrun an exploding rocket, is the result of years of work from scientists and engineers across the country, including in Southern California's Mojave Desert.

A Southwest Research Institute-led study found that protons and heavy ions react differently to solar magnetic reconnection events, revealing a more complex magnetic engine powering the solar wind. Magnetic reconnection converts magnetic energy into explosive kinetic energy,