The four astronauts selected for NASA's Artemis II mission arrived in Florida on Friday, entering the final preparations for the first crewed journey to the moon in over 50 years.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen flew from Houston to Kennedy Space Center, where they could launch as soon as April 1 aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. They will travel in the Orion crew capsule on a roughly 10-day mission looping around the moon and back.

"The nation and the world have been waiting a long time to do this again," Wiseman, the mission commander, told reporters after landing at Kennedy Space Center, adding that he and his crewmates "are really pumped to go do this."

Artemis II, the first crewed mission of NASA's Artemis program, will test Orion's life-support systems, navigation, communications and heat shield performance.

Boeing is the prime contractor for the SLS core stage, Northrop Grumman builds the rocket's solid-fuel boosters, and Lockheed Martin produces the Orion spacecraft.

The crew has spent over two years training for the mission since being named in 2023, and has been in preflight quarantine since March 18. Glover, the mission's pilot, will become the first Black astronaut to travel to the moon's vicinity. Koch will be ‌the first woman to do so, while Hansen will be the first non-American astronaut to go beyond low Earth orbit.

All of the crew members except Hansen have previously been in space. Wiseman, the mission commander, told reporters last year that the crew were prepared for all eventualities.

"When we get off the planet, we might come right back home, we might spend three or four days around Earth, we might go to the moon – that's where we want to go," Wiseman said. "But it is a test mission, and we're ready for ​every scenario."

Wiseman, 50, previously spent 165 days aboard the ISS and served as NASA's chief astronaut before being selected to command Artemis II. Glover, 49, flew 168 days in space with NASA's Crew-1 mission. Koch, 47, set a record in 2019 for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman, spending 328 days aboard the ISS. Hansen, 50, who was selected as a Canadian astronaut in 2009, will make his first spaceflight. His seat reflects a long-standing US-Canadian partnership in human spaceflight, including Canada's contributions to robotics used aboard the ISS.

NASA plans additional Artemis missions in the years ahead as it works towards a sustained human presence on the moon and future crewed missions to Mars.

(With input from Reuters)