floods. and the iaea says a team is traveling to ukraine s nuclear power plant amid a looming catastrophe. we ll bring you the latest on the attack with those fears. live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom, with rosemary church. good to have you with us. for nearly 50 years since apollo 17, nasa is taking its first steps to sending astronauts back to the moon. you are looking at live pictures of the launch pad at kennedy space center in florida, where the scheduled launch window for the artemis one window is a few hours away. the unmanned mission to the moon is the first of several in the years ahead. eventually the goal is to return astronauts to lunar surface for the first time since the final apollo mission in 1972. and ultimately, nasa hopes to some day land the first humans on mars. as of now, scientists are aiming for 2025 for that return to the moon surface. a mission which would include the first woman to make the voyage. cnn s rachel cain shows us, the capsule
homes in northeast jackson. the next human boots will be a woman and a person of color on the moon and that inspiration to provide diversity in this type of environment. hello and welcome, it is monday, august 29 at 9 am in london and 4 am in florida where we are hours away from the launch of artemis one. the first steps in nasa s return to the moon. these are life photos of the launchpad in florida and the launch window is scheduled to open four and half hours from now. right now the launch team is dealing with a leak they observed. nasa says they are troubleshooting the issue but no word on whether this will impact the launch. this is the first of several missions to the moon in the years ahead. eventually the mission is to send humans back to the moon for the first time since 72 and one day nasa hopes to land the first humans on mars. this is set up as a test flight. one risk is radiation exposure, one of the goals of this mission is to mitigate those risks in the futu
orbit the moon with astronauts board and artemis iii for 2025 will land people at the moon s south pole. joining me now is kristen fisher live at the kennedy space center in florida. i love the nod to the program, calling this artemis. what s the significance of this mission if we ve been to the moon before? reporter: you know, a lot of people say that. the reason nasa wants to go back to the moon with the artemis program is two reasons one they want to leave behind more than flags and footprints. they want to build a base on the moon. one that astronauts can live on permanently. and part of the reason they want to do this is because china also has plans to build a base on the south pole of the moon, so there s a political competition element to it. and the other reason is they want to go to mars. nasa officials stress the moon is a proving ground and stepping point to some day get to mars, christine? how are the weather conditions there? is it likely to lift off in the t
of frost so that could just be frost, it could be the result of a crack, so the teams are looking into that, but also an engine issue. engine number 3 on the core stage, the core stage is that orange huge middle part of the rocket that you see. one of the four engines is not performing as expected right now. as you pointed out there is a two-hour launch window but all of these delays have added up so it s unclear right now if the teams will be able to troubleshoot these issues but also if they would be able if they are able to troubleshoot these issues if they will be able to make up that time and make up make this launch window today. if they are not able to make this launch window there is another potential launch date of september 2nd, also a backup to the backup of september 5th. i want to remind our viewers that this is a test launch here and that rocket behind me has never flown. so there have been several issues that nasa has dealt with over the years in terms of,
the artemis program aims to land humans on the unexplored lunar south pole of the moon in the next few years and ultimately serve as a way to get to mars. nasa administrator bill nelson says we re returning to the moon to live, work and survive. let s get right to the kennedy space center, cnn s space and defense correspondent kristin fisher is there. kristen, how are we looking so far? reporter: it is too soon to say, john. nasa has already successfully troubleshooted two big issues this morning, that s the good news. the first issue was they made it through some pretty severe potential lightning storms that were a little too close to the launch pad for comfort for fueling, and then the other big issue was they encountered a hydrogen link leak during the fueling of that big main core stage, that s that burnt orange main part of the rocket that you can see on the launch pad. they encountered some similar issues during previous tests, but this time they were successfully a