at last check, they ve tried a few different ways to troubleshoot it, to fix the problem. no word yet on whether they ve been able to stop it at this point. this follows monday s scrubbed launch which was largely due to an engine cooling problem. it was a tricky sensor that was off. but engineers remain optimistic that today there will be a launch. for now, the weather has been cooperating so that helps. nasa meteorologists predict about 60% favorable conditions, which increases to 80% as the day goes on. of course this historic mission marks the next chapter of lunar exploration and will land the first woman and first person of color on the moon in a matter of years. let s go now to cnn s space and defense correspondent kristin fisher live this morning from the kennedy space center. i don t think kristin has us. can you hear us? reporter: hey, guys, i m having a hard time with my earpiece so i can t quite hear what you said. let me bring you up to speed from the kenned
story from washington. pete, can you give us the latest on what we know, how long this pilot has been in the air, and what the danger is to the public at this point? reporter: well, sara, we know that this plane took off from the tupelo regional airport around 5:00 a.m. central time, 6:00 a.m. on the east coast. we re coming up on the plane being in the air for about five hours now. the plane is a king air c-90. you can see it there, that s a small twin-engine turboprop airplane. it seats between six and eight people. it can go about 250 miles an hour. the question now is how this will end, how this story will end. will the airplane run out of fuel? we ve been talking to sources who fly king airs and they tell me it can only fly for between four and six hours if the plane is fully loaded with fuel. that is the track from flighfl flightaware. you can see the plane took off from touupelo airport, circled e airport at a relatively low altitude, then continued northbound over t
that s barely over 300 feet. the international atomic energy agency warning this heightens the risk of a potential nuclear accident. radioactivity levels are within normal range right now, but that could change at any moment and thousands of residents living in the shadow of this plant are all too aware of the dangers as city authorities are now handing out iodine pills in case of a nuclear disaster. cnn s sam kiley has the latest from zaporizhzhia in ukraine. reporter: jim, the ukrainian authorities remain deeply concerned about what might happen at the zaporizhzhia power plant. for the first time now issuing iodine tablets to the population here in zaporizhzhia. we re only about 20 miles from that nuclear power station. of course iodine being given out as a potential pro-phylacticrop. this boils down to the problem that the nuclear power station is on the frontline being used as a firebase by the russians. the russians claim the ukrainians are shooting back at it. there s
earpiece so i can t quite hear what you said. let me bring you up to speed from the kennedy space center. we re listening to nasa engineers as they try to troubleshoot this hydrogen like a. plan a didn t work, plan b didn t work, they weren t able to come up with a plan c so they went back to plan a. plan a is essentially trying to warm up and then cool back down this leaky hose, so to speak, so try to get this hy hydrogen going back here. this is the artemis rocket, the sls rocket, orion capsule on top, where some day, if this thing ever takes off, this is where the crew would be. the hydrogen leak is from an eight-inch line that goes right in about here. essentially what they re trying to do, this fuel that goes in,
15% more thrust than the mighty saturn v which took people to the moon in the 60s and early 70s. it s a rocket that is $4.1 billion for a single launch. the idea was to come up with a rocket made of shuttle parts and literally the engines on this rocket have flown to space on space shuttles. and that that would be faster and better and cheaper. but it s actually been slower and very expensive. whether it s better is to be determined. we ll going to leave it there. miles o brien and mike massamino, we appreciate it, thank you very much. we re following breaking news out of mississippi. governor tate reeves says state authorities are tracking a plane whose pilot is threatening to intentionally crash into a local tupolo walmart. let s get right to cnn s nadia romero.