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NASA Counts Down for First Crewed Lunar Mission in Half a Century

NASA's Artemis II lunar flyby mission, with the next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule, sits on Pad 39B ahead of the launch of the Artemis II mission at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, March 31, 2026 - Reuters
NASA's Artemis II lunar flyby mission, with the next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule, sits on Pad 39B ahead of the launch of the Artemis II mission at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, March 31, 2026 - Reuters
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NASA Counts Down for First Crewed Lunar Mission in Half a Century

NASA's Artemis II lunar flyby mission, with the next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule, sits on Pad 39B ahead of the launch of the Artemis II mission at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, March 31, 2026 - Reuters
NASA's Artemis II lunar flyby mission, with the next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule, sits on Pad 39B ahead of the launch of the Artemis II mission at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, March 31, 2026 - Reuters

NASA is set to launch four astronauts as soon as Wednesday evening on a 10-day flight around the moon, marking the most ambitious US space mission in decades and a major step toward returning humans to the lunar surface before China's first crewed landing.

NASA mission managers on Monday polled "go" to launch the Artemis II mission's towering, 322-ft (98-m) Space Launch System (SLS) rocket topped with the astronauts' Orion crew capsule as early as 6:24 p.m. EDT (2224 GMT) on Wednesday.

It will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida just one pad away from where the last moon-bound astronauts of the US Apollo program lifted off more than half a century ago, Reuters reported.

The Artemis II crew includes NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who landed in Florida from Houston on Friday.

They had been in a two-week quarantine leading up to liftoff and spent time with their families over the weekend at the Kennedy Space Center's beach house, a spot where astronauts rest before blasting off into space.

"Certainly all indications are right now, we are in excellent, excellent shape as we get into count," launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson told reporters on Monday.

Weather conditions appeared favorable for an on-time liftoff, with only a 20% chance of souring within the agency's two-hour launch window on Wednesday. If the weather worsens and triggers a scrub, NASA could try again to launch any day until April 6, after which it would wait until April 30 for its next opportunity.

The launch had originally been planned for as early as February 6, and then March 6, until a pesky hydrogen leak prompted NASA to roll the rocket back to its vehicle assembly building for scrutiny.

FARTHEST TRIP IN HISTORY

The Artemis II mission will send the crew on a winding, nearly 10-day journey around the moon and back, sending them some 252,000 miles (406,000 km) into space - the farthest humans have ever traveled.

The current record for the farthest spaceflight at roughly 248,000 miles is held by the three-man crew of the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970, which was beset by technical problems after an oxygen tank exploded and was unable to land on the moon as planned.

Humans have not left Earth's orbit since the final Apollo mission in 1972.

NASA launched its first Artemis mission without crew in 2022, sending the gumdrop-shaped Orion spacecraft on a similar path around the moon and back.

Artemis II will pose a greater test of Orion and the SLS rocket. The astronauts on board will test critical life-support systems, crew interfaces and communications. They will also take manual control of Orion in space roughly three hours after launch to test its steering and maneuverability, a key feature should its automated systems fail.

Lockheed Martin builds Orion, while Boeing and Northrop Grumman have led the development of SLS since 2010, a program partly known for its ballooning costs at an estimated $2 billion to $4 billion per launch.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are racing to develop lunar landers that NASA will use to put its astronauts on the lunar surface.

The Artemis II mission is a key early step in the agency's multibillion-dollar Artemis program that envisions a long-term settlement on the lunar south pole. NASA is pressing hard to land its first crew of astronauts there on the Artemis IV mission by 2028, before China does around 2030.

Artemis III had been set to be the agency's first astronaut moon landing, but new NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman in February added an extra test mission before the landing.

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This Year Set to Be One of Four Hottest on Record, UN Report Says

A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)
A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)
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This Year Set to Be One of Four Hottest on Record, UN Report Says

A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)
A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)

This year is ‌on track to be one of the four hottest on record, driven by a powerful El Niño and perpetuating a warming streak of more than a decade, a UN report showed on Monday.

Countries are preparing to meet in Türkiye from November 9 to 20 for the next round of climate talks and the World Meteorological Organization "State of the Climate" report provides the latest available data ‌to inform ‌their discussions.

Between January and September ‌this ⁠year, the global average ⁠temperature was 1.47 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average and could rise further due to a major El Niño, the report showed.

The WMO report, which encompasses nine data sets, showed that each of the past 12 years, including 2026, ⁠was ranked among the 12 warmest ever ‌recorded since records began ‌in around 1850.

“Every indicator here is telling the ‌same story. We're seeing the heat trapped by greenhouse ‌gasses is showing up in the ocean, in the atmosphere, in the melting of ice and the rising of sea levels,” WMO Head of Climate Information John Kennedy ‌told reporters in Geneva ahead of the conference.

The EU's Copernicus climate ⁠service ⁠already said 2026 was all but certain to become the second calendar year after 2024 to exceed the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The planet is increasingly accumulating heat, the UN report said, with ocean temperatures continuing to rise this year from 2025 all-time highs.

Global mean sea levels have also reached a record this year as glaciers and ice sheets melt and seawater expands as it heats, the report said.

Varieties

Reintroduction of White-Tailed Eagles Puts Seabird Colonies at Risk of Wipeout

A white-tailed eagle over the Isle of Mull in Scotland. (Natural Resources Wales)
A white-tailed eagle over the Isle of Mull in Scotland. (Natural Resources Wales)
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Reintroduction of White-Tailed Eagles Puts Seabird Colonies at Risk of Wipeout

A white-tailed eagle over the Isle of Mull in Scotland. (Natural Resources Wales)
A white-tailed eagle over the Isle of Mull in Scotland. (Natural Resources Wales)

White-tailed eagles reintroduced into England and Wales imperil endangered seabird populations and risk wiping out some colonies, The Guardian reported quoting ecologists and conservationists.

Puffins, guillemots, razorbills, fulmars and kittiwakes are among the birds for which breeding populations could collapse if large numbers of white-tailed eagles are released, according to some academics and conservationists.

“Amidst all the excitement and enthusiasm for reintroducing white-tailed eagles, the fact that these birds will probably destroy our seabird colonies seems to have been completely overlooked,” said Tim Birkhead, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Sheffield.

The return of white-tailed eagles to Britain after they were driven to extinction in 1918 has been a great conservation success story in recent decades.

But proposals to release up to 60 eagles in Gwent, south Wales, on top of 20 young birds already being released over the next three years on Exmoor, is dividing nature lovers.

Sarah Kessell, the chief executive of the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales (WTSWW), said: “We’re increasingly alarmed about the reintroduction of white-tailed eagles across the UK as more evidence comes to light of their impact on cliff-nesting seabirds.”

She noted that the islands of Skomer and Skokholm are a sanctuary for globally important seabird populations, which are already under threat. “The extra pressure of disturbance and displacement from white-tailed eagles could have a significant impact on breeding seabirds. We have an overwhelming obligation to protect the seabirds on the islands that we manage,” Kessell said.

White-tailed eagle chicks brought over from Norway to reintroduce them into Scotland in 1975 has led to a wild population now of 200 breeding pairs, with 45 birds successfully reintroduced to the Isle of Wight since 2019.

Although there has been repeated illegal killing of the huge avian predator, the first English-born wild bird fledged from a nest in East Sussex in 2023.

Wales has not yet restored the species to its skies.

Prof Geoff Hilton, the head of wetland evidence at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), which is leading the Gwent reintroduction, said: “Conservation action has and always will carry an element of risk. But what’s essential is that we carefully evaluate those risks early, use robust evidence to investigate the scale of those risks, and balance them against potential opportunities.”

Hilton stressed that white-tailed eagles were generalist feeders with a varied diet including carrion, fish and small mammals.

Research published in 2020 of eagles east of the Baltic Sea found that birds of particular conservation concern in the EU accounted for around 1% of identified prey in a long-term study of eagle diets.

He said: “With careful phasing, we aim to establish seven to nine breeding pairs of white-tailed eagles over the next 10 years.”

“We don’t expect this reintroduction to significantly reduce or impact any single species population. We do, however, expect to see healthier, more balanced ecosystems and landscapes, as apex predators like these eagles start to thrive once again,” he added.

Varieties

Can't Cook or Shower: Indonesians Take Aim at Data Centers

Residents extend a supply hose to fill a barrel with clean water from a tanker truck in Kavling Bakau Serip, amid local water shortages linked to data center developments in Batam. ANDARU / AFP
Residents extend a supply hose to fill a barrel with clean water from a tanker truck in Kavling Bakau Serip, amid local water shortages linked to data center developments in Batam. ANDARU / AFP
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Can't Cook or Shower: Indonesians Take Aim at Data Centers

Residents extend a supply hose to fill a barrel with clean water from a tanker truck in Kavling Bakau Serip, amid local water shortages linked to data center developments in Batam. ANDARU / AFP
Residents extend a supply hose to fill a barrel with clean water from a tanker truck in Kavling Bakau Serip, amid local water shortages linked to data center developments in Batam. ANDARU / AFP

Cooking and bathing became difficult when taps ran dry in Batam, an Indonesian island where residents are protesting as data centers spring up to power the global artificial intelligence boom.

The area had suffered a "long drought" caused by low rainfall, the local water utility operator told AFP, as a strong El Nino cycle exacerbates dry weather.

But, as in other countries, anger has been directed at the data centers, warehouse-like facilities that keep apps and artificial intelligence tools running, with water often used to cool their humming servers.

Frustration is bubbling over in Indonesia and Malaysia -- especially in regions bordering Singapore that are seen as a prime location for new tech facilities.

At first the main reaction was, "thank God industry is coming" to Batam, 54-year-old tradesman Juniardi Adinda Sembiring Gurukinayan told AFP.

But severe recent outages hitting the municipal water service in some Batam communities meant "sometimes I skipped my shower".

"We cannot eat rice without water. We cannot cook vegetables without water," he said.

At the worst point, dozens of angry residents staged spontaneous protests outside Nongsa Digital Park -- a new cluster of data centers and other amenities, designated a special economic zone.

People in the district believe "that the water shortages... are related to the construction of data centers", Juniardi said.

The drought caused the nearby Nongsa Reservoir to run very low, and supply systems were further disrupted by an electrical fault, said Ginda Alamsyah, a spokesman for water utility operator Air Batam Hilir (ABH).

The tech park receives water from a different source, Duriangkang Reservoir, an industry source told AFP.

- 'Smelly, yellowish' -

Authorities in late September told developers they must build plants to desalinate seawater for cooling, to avoid straining local resources.

Companies behind operational or planned data centers at Nongsa Digital Park include the Singapore-headquartered BW Digital, DayOne, and Princeton Digital Group.

Another owner, Hong Kong-based Gaw Capital Partners, said it was "aware of the distress and frustration expressed by local residents in Nongsa and surrounding Batam communities" over water shortages.

To ensure sustainable operations, "our data center facilities must deploy a combination of advanced engineering, efficient architectural designs, and renewable energy sourcing," it said.

That includes using so-called "closed-loop" water systems that reuse resources and so require less fresh liquid.

As residents demanded a return to normal water supply at one protest last month, AFP saw a police officer filling up buckets they had brought to Nongsa Digital Park.

In nearby coastal village Mata Ikan, people had to use seawater to wash after defecating, said demonstrator Rahmat, 52, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

"The water crisis has been going on for the past year, but it got worse in the last six months," 38-year-old Sulastri said at her home, where supply was out, so she poured water from a plastic bottle to wash dishes.

"Many of us here run small stalls. We used to make ice cubes, but we can't anymore."

The government has been distributing water from tanks driven around, but Sulastri said it was "smelly" and "yellowish".

AFP contacted the local government BP Batam, and Indonesia's ministry for economic affairs, which regulates Nongsa Digital Park, for comment. Neither responded.

Recent disruption to water distribution "was not caused by data centers or AI or investors entering that sector," Amsakar Achmad, Batam mayor and head of BP Batam said in October, according to local media.

The decline in water supply was instead "due to weather and climate factors", he said.

- Tech boom -

Data center capacity in Southeast Asia is projected to triple from 2025 levels by 2030, driven by a tenfold surge in AI use, according to a KPMG report.

This can put pressure on water supplies, but also electricity grids still heavily reliant on planet-warming fossil fuels.

The data center construction boom in Indonesia and Malaysia began when resource constraints led hyper-connected Singapore to halt new developments between 2019 and 2022.

It has since ramped up, boosting both countries' economies as governments and tech giants pour hundreds of billions of dollars into training and running AI.

Ginda said water provider ABH supports policies to encourage investment and development in Batam, south of Singapore and connected to it by undersea cables.

But he added that water demand must be managed properly, adding that ABH is trying to boost the capacity of Batam's six reservoirs by dredging them, with cloud seeding another option in dry periods.

- 'Inflection point' -

North of Singapore, Malaysia's Johor region has become "one of the largest emerging AI infrastructure clusters in the world", according to researcher James Chai of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

Just half a decade ago, Johor hosted 10 megawatts of data center capacity. That has ballooned by a factor of 200 to 2.1 gigawatts today, Chai said.

The environmental cost could be high.

By 2035, data centers are forecast to swallow up one-third of Malaysia's total energy consumption, the deputy prime minister told parliament in July.

The government said at that time it would only approve data center projects after ensuring sufficient energy and water supply capacity.

Johor residents have protested over dust pollution and flash floods linked to data center construction, as operators build closer to residential areas.

"Johor is at a critical inflection point," Mohd Fadhil Md Din of Malaysia's University of Technology told AFP.

"It has the potential to become Southeast Asia's leading sustainable data center hub," but only if it manages resources and spatial planning carefully, he said.

- 'We all feel it' -

Pushback sometimes works.

In Kota Damansara on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, a plot of land intended for a data center remains empty after local opposition.

The developer withdrew its planning permission application in August, after its neighbors spoke out online, lobbied their MP and gathered more than 9,000 petition signatures.

Jahaidi Harun, 72, had been concerned that the proposed data center could be noisy and pressure existing infrastructure.

Data centers "use a lot of water," the retiree told AFP, adding that, as in Batam, "if the rain doesn't come for one month, we all feel it".

Following the withdrawal, Malaysia's human resources minister Ramanan Ramakrishnan told local media he wasn't against "development or investment".

But "for large-scale projects that could affect the residents' lives, the people must have a say".