CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Excitement is building on Florida’s Space Coast as three Americans and one Canadian will become the first humans to blast off on a mission to the moon in over five decades.

It’s the second Artemis mission and will serve as a key test flight in humanity’s return to space.

The astronauts are set to liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral aboard NASA’s Orion capsule and space launch system rocket on Wednesday night for a 10-day mission that will swing around the moon and back.

The journey will take the crew deeper into space than humans have ever gone before.

This mission is the first crewed test flight in NASA’s multibillion-dollar Artemis program, the flagship U.S. effort to put humans back on the moon this decade.

Humans have not touched down on the moon’s surface since the Apollo XVII mission back in 1972, but NASA is aiming to repeat the tricky feat in 2028.

While the Artemis II will not attempt a moon landing, it will serve as a major test of NASA’s new technology, which was launched on a similar mission without crew in 2022.

The astronauts will test critical life-support, navigation and communications systems before NASA proceeds with more complex missions in the coming years.

It comes as American leaders are racing to reassert leadership in space amid growing competition from China.

Leadership from the U.S. space agency, including NASA Administrator Jared Issacman and Canadian Space Agency President Lisa Campell, were seen greeting the four astronauts when they arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday ahead of the major mission.

Over the next decade, through a series of increasingly complex missions, the United States is aiming to set the standard for how other countries will operate and co-exist on the moon’s surface, a stage of national power where countries and companies can exploit the rocky lunar resources and practice for harder missions to Mars.

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