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In just a couple days the Artemis II mission will blast off, sending astronauts around the Moon for the first time in more than five decades.
An Edmonton space blogger is among the hundreds of media at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to cover the historic event.
“You could definitely feel the excitement as press from literally around the world — they’re now setting up — and everyone’s here, everyone’s ready,” Zachary Aubert said.
Aubert started his platform, The Launch Pad, on YouTube and other social media pages in 2021.
His first guest was U.S. billionaire entrepreneur, pilot and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman, who became the administrator of NASA this past December.
Since starting The Launch Pad, he’s covered many big moments in space exploration.
He now has more than 727,000 subscribers on YouTube and 38,000 followers on Facebook.
Aubert says being in Florida for this launch is exhilarating.
Zachary Aubert at The Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Courtesy / The Launch Pad
“There’s about 800 press from around the world that have been invited,” Aubert explained.
Last month, NASA gave him a up-close tour of the rocket inside the vehicle assembly building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center — a place Aubert said many enthusiasts call “The Cathedral of American Spaceflight.”
Aubert also watched up close as the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft was moved outside and rolled several kilometres to its launch pad.
Seeing it finally blast off into space is a dream come true.
“To get to be three miles away from the vehicle when it launches, having been able to be out at the pad with my team setting up cameras and being under the vehicle 50 feet during rollout.
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“It’s surreal to be this close.”
Courtesy / The Launch Pad
NASA has set April 1 as the earliest expected launch date for Artemis II — the first manned mission to travel around the moon in 53 years.
That crew includes Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, 50, of London, Ont. as a mission specialist — the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit.
He will be joined by veteran American NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch.
Artemis II backup crewmembers NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, left to right, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jenni Gibbons pose for a group photo with prime crewmembers NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and NASA astronaut Christina Koch, in front of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, secured to the mobile launcher, as it makes the 4.2 mile journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., in a Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, handout photo.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout – NASA, Joel Kowsky (Mandatory Credit)
The 32-story space launch system rocket is poised to blast off Wednesday evening — NASA has the first six days of April to launch Artemis II before standing down until the end of the month.
After a day in orbit around Earth, their Orion capsule will propel them to the moon and back. There are no stops — just a quick U-turn around the moon.
The nearly 10-day flight will end with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
Calgary’s Jenni Gibbons is Hansen’s backup.
She was selected by the Canadian Space Agency in 2017 at the age of 28 — just the third woman to join the ranks of Canadian astronaut recruits — and soon relocated to Houston, where NASA is based.
As an astronaut understudy, she’s gone through years of the same training as those on the rocket — in the unlikely event that Hansen cannot fly.
Ahead of the launch, she must stay prepared and go into quarantine with the other astronauts. In the days and hours before takeoff, Gibbons will also enter the capsule to ensure it’s ready to take the astronauts up.
As the rocket circles the moon, Gibbons will serve as a voice link from Earth to space — part of the team coaching Hansen and the other astronauts on key mission objectives.
While four nations have successfully landed devices on the Moon (USSR, United States, India, China), only the the U.S. has had men walk on the surface.
“It’s a big thing. No other country has sent an astronaut to the moon, so we’ll be the first country other than the U.S. to do that,” said Frank Florian with the Telus World of Science Edmonton.
To share in the excitement, the Telus World of Science is hosting a watch party.
NASA’s Artemis II mission should have soared in February, but was grounded by hydrogen fuel leaks.
The leaks were fixed, but then a helium pressurization line became clogged, forcing a return to the hangar late last month. The rocket returned to the pad 1 1/2 weeks ago, and its U.S.-Canadian crew arrived at the launch site last week.
Unlike Apollo, which sent only men to the moon from 1968 through 1972, Artemis’ debut crew includes a woman, person of color and a non-U.S. citizen (Hansen.)
For Aubert, when that moment comes for takeoff, he’s just going to try to take it all in.
“We’re going to feel the heat of those SRBs (solid rocket boosters), and we’re going to feel that vibration of a moon rocket stretching past Earth’s orbit,” Aubert said.
“It’s going to be truly incredible.”
With files from Karen Bartko, Global News, Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press, and Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
