CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — It’s humanity’s first flight to the moon since 1972.

In a throwback to Apollo, NASA’s Artemis II mission will send four astronauts on a lunar fly-around. They’ll hurtle several thousand miles beyond the moon, hang a U-turn and then come straight back. No circling around the moon, no stopping for a moonwalk — just a quick out-and-back lasting less than 10 days.

NASA promises more boot prints in the gray lunar dust, but not before a couple practice missions. The upcoming test flight by Artemis astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen is the first step in settling the moon this time around.

Here’s a snapshot of the Artemis II mission.

The Artemis astronauts are a diverse and international crew

The moon is about to welcome its first woman, first person of color and first non-American.

Koch already holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman. During her 328-day mission at the International Space Station spanning 2019 and 2020, she took part in the first all-female spacewalk.

Glover, a Navy test pilot, was the first Black astronaut to live and work aboard the space station in 2020 and 2021. He also was one of the first astronauts to launch with SpaceX.

The Canadian Space Agency’s Hansen, a former fighter pilot, is the lone space rookie. Their commander is Wiseman, a retired Navy captain who lived aboard the space station in 2014 and later headed NASA’s astronaut corps. They range in age from 47 to 50.

The Space Launch System is more powerful than the Saturn V rocket

NASA’s new Space Launch System rocket stands 322 feet (98 meters), shorter than the Apollo program’s Saturn V rocket but more powerful at liftoff thanks to a pair of strap-on boosters. Atop the rocket is the Orion capsule carrying the astronauts.

Made of salvaged space shuttle engines and other parts, the SLS uses the same fuel — liquid hydrogen — as the shuttles did. Hydrogen leaks repeatedly grounded the shuttles as well as the first SLS rocket test without astronauts aboard in 2022. More than three years later, Artemis II suffered the same hydrogen leaks during a February fueling practice run, missing the first launch window. A repeat of helium-flow issues bumped the mission into April.

How Artemis II will fly around the moon

After liftoff, the astronauts will spend the first 25 hours circling Earth in a high, lopsided orbit. They’ll use the separated upper stage as a target, steering their Orion capsule around it as docking practice for future moonshots. Instead of fancy range finders, they’ll rely on their eyes to judge the gap, venturing no closer than 33 feet (10 meters) to the stage.

“Sometimes simple stuff is the best,” Wiseman said.

If all goes as planned, Orion’s main engine will hurl the crew to the moon some 244,000 miles (393,000 kilometers) away. This free-return trajectory made famous in Apollo 13 relies on the moon and Earth’s gravity, minimizing the need for fuel.

On flight day six, Orion will reach its farthermost point from Earth as it sails 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) beyond the moon. That will surpass Apollo 13’s distance record, making Artemis astronauts the most remote travelers. After emerging from behind the moon, the crew will head straight home with a splashdown on flight day 10 — nine days, one hour and 46 minutes after liftoff.

What to expect during the Artemis flyby

The Artemis II crew may behold never-before-seen regions of the lunar far side — with the moon appearing the size of a basketball at arm’s length during the closest part of the roughly six-hour flyby. They’ve been poring over maps and satellite images of the lunar far side and anticipate a photo frenzy. Their lunar mentor is NASA geologist Kelsey Young, who will monitor the flyby from Mission Control in Houston.

“The moon is like such a unifying thing,” she said. “What we’re doing with this mission is going to bring that a little closer to everybody around the world.”

Besides professional cameras, they’ll carry the latest smartphones. NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman added smartphones to the mission for “inspiring” picture-taking.

While NASA and private companies have focused over the years on reaching the moon’s near side — the side that constantly faces Earth — only China has planted landers on the far side. That makes the astronauts’ observations of the lunar far side all the more valuable for NASA.

Artemis astronauts will splash back down to Earth

Like Apollo, the Artemis mission ends with a splashdown homecoming into the Pacific.

All eyes will be on Orion’s heat shield as the capsule plunges through the atmosphere. It’s the part of the spacecraft that took the biggest beating during 2022’s test flight, with charred chunks gouged out. The heat shield is being retooled for future capsules but remains the original design for Artemis II.

NASA is limiting the heat exposure during reentry by shortening the capsule’s atmospheric descent. Navy recovery ships will be stationed off the coast of San Diego as Orion parachutes into the ocean.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s online safety watchdog said Tuesday it was considering court action against Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube alleging they are not doing enough to keep Australian children younger than 16 off their platforms.

Experts say the Australian courts could decide what steps the platforms can reasonably be expected to take under the laws that took effect on Dec. 10 banning young children from holding accounts.

Julie Inman Grant, who is Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, on Tuesday released her first compliance report since those laws took effect demanding 10 platforms remove all Australian account-holders younger than 16.

While 5 million Australian accounts had been deactivated, a substantial number of Australian children continued to retain accounts, create new accounts and pass platforms’ age assurance systems, the report said.

Inman Grant said in a statement her office had “significant concerns about the compliance” of half of those 10 platforms. Her office was gathering evidence against the five that they had not taken “reasonable steps” to prevent young children holding accounts.

Courts could order fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to comply. eSafety would decide on whether to initiate court action against any platform by midyear.

Age-restricted platforms that aren’t under investigation are Reddit, X, Kick, Threads and Twitch.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said the five criticized platforms were deliberately not complying with Australian law.

“Social media platforms are choosing to do the absolute bare minimum because they want these laws to fail,” Wells told reporters.

“This is the world-leading law. We’re the first in the world to do it. Of course they don’t want these laws to work because they want that to be a chilling effect on the dozen countries that have come out since Dec. 10 to follow Australia’s step,” she added.

eSafety had identified “poor practices” such as platforms allowing unlimited attempts for a user to pass their age assurance methods and prompting the user to try to pass the age assurance method even after they declared themselves underage.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, told The Associated Press it was committed to complying with Australia’s social media ban. “We’ve also been clear that accurately determining age online is a challenge for the whole industry,” the statement said.

Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, said it has locked 450,000 accounts in compliance with the law and continued to lock more every day.

“Snapchat remains fully committed to implementing reasonable steps under the legislation and supporting its underlying goal of improving online safety for young Australians,” a Snap statement said.

TikTok declined to comment on Tuesday and Alphabet Inc., which owns YouTube and Google, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lisa Given, an information sciences expert at RMIT University in Melbourne, said she expected the courts will decide whether platforms have taken “reasonable steps” to exclude young children.

“If a tech company has said: look, we put in age assurance, we’ve done all these steps. That’s reasonable. Even though the aged assurance technologies are flawed, whose fault is that? Should they be held accountable for a piece of technology that is not 100% and likely not going to be 100% foolproof any time soon?” Given said.

“That’s really the crux of it: what the courts will deem reasonable,” she added.

Reddit has filed one of two constitutional challenges to the social media ban in the Australian High Court. The other was filed by Digital Freedom Project, a Sydney-based rights group that did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday..

Both suits claim the law is unconstitutional because it infringes on Australia’s implied freedom of political communication.

A prelimary hearing is set for May 21 when the court will set a date for oral arguments, Reddit said Tuesday.