CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA fueled its new moon rocket in one final make-or-break test Monday, with hopes of sending astronauts on a lunar fly-around as soon as this coming weekend.
The launch team began loading the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket with super-cold hydrogen and oxygen at Kennedy Space Center late at midday. More than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) had to flow into the tanks and remain on board for several hours, mimicking the final stages of an actual countdown.
Click to Gallery
A full moon is seen shining over NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher in the early hours of Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Sam Lott/NASA via AP)
The NASA Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Orion spacecraft is seen at Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
The NASA Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Orion spacecraft is seen at Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
A full moon is seen shining over NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher in the early hours of Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Sam Lott/NASA via AP)
The only thing missing from the critical dress rehearsal was the crew. The three Americans and one Canadian monitored the action from nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away in Houston, home to Johnson Space Center. They have been in quarantine for the past 1½ weeks, awaiting the practice countdown's outcome.
The all-day operation will determine when they can blast off on the first lunar voyage by a crew in more than half a century.
Running two days behind because of a bitter cold snap, NASA set its countdown clocks to stop a half-minute before reaching zero, just before engine ignition. The clocks began ticking Saturday night, giving launch controllers the chance to go through all the motions and deal with any lingering problems with the Space Launch System rocket. Hydrogen leaks kept the first SLS rocket on the pad for months in 2022. Launch managers said they're confident the issues are behind them.
If the fueling demo goes well, NASA could launch commander Reid Wiseman and his crew to the moon as soon as Sunday. The rocket must be flying by Feb. 11 or the mission will be called off until March. The space agency only has a few days in any given month to launch the rocket, and the extreme cold already has shortened February’s launch window by two days.
The nearly 10-day mission will send the astronauts past the moon, around the mysterious far side and then straight back to Earth, with the goal of testing the capsule's life support and other vital systems. The crew will not go into lunar orbit or attempt to land.
NASA last sent astronauts to the moon during the 1960s and 1970s Apollo program. The new Artemis program aims for a more sustained lunar presence, with Wiseman’s crew setting the stage for future moon landings by other astronauts.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A full moon is seen shining over NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher in the early hours of Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Sam Lott/NASA via AP)
The NASA Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Orion spacecraft is seen at Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
The NASA Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Orion spacecraft is seen at Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
A full moon is seen shining over NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher in the early hours of Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Sam Lott/NASA via AP)
CAIRO (AP) — Medical evacuees from Gaza entered Egypt on Monday as the Rafah border crossing reopened, marking a key step in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire but a mostly symbolic one. Few people will be allowed to travel in either direction and no goods will pass through.
Ambulances waited for hours at the border before ferrying patients across after sunset, Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News satellite television channel showed. The crossing had been closed since Israeli troops seized it in May 2024.
About 20,000 Palestinian children and adults needing medical care hope to leave the devastated territory via the crossing, according to Gaza health officials. Thousands of other Palestinians outside the territory hope to enter and return home.
The number of travelers is expected to increase over time if the system is successful. Israel has said it and Egypt will vet people for exit and entry.
The office of the North Sinai governor confirmed that the first Palestinian patient crossed into Egypt.
Before the war, Rafah was the main crossing for people moving in and out of Gaza. The territory’s handful of other crossings are all shared with Israel. Under the terms of the ceasefire, which went into effect in October, Israel’s military controls the area between the Rafah crossing and the zone where most Palestinians live.
Violence continued across the coastal territory Monday, and Gaza hospital officials said an Israeli navy ship had fired on a tent camp, killing a 3-year-old Palestinian boy. Israel’s military said it was looking into the incident.
Rajaa Abu Mustafa stood Monday outside a Gaza hospital where her 17-year-old son Mohamed was awaiting evacuation. He was blinded by a shot to the eye last year as he joined desperate Palestinians seeking food from aid trucks east of the southern city of Khan Younis.
“We have been waiting for the crossing to open,” she said. “Now it’s opened and the health ministry called and told us that we will travel to Egypt for (his) treatment.”
About 150 hospitals across Egypt are ready to receive Palestinian patients evacuated from Gaza through Rafah, authorities said. The Egyptian Red Crescent said it has readied “safe spaces” on the Egyptian side of the crossing to support those evacuated from Gaza.
Israel has banned sending patients to hospitals in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem since the war began, cutting off what was previously the main outlet for Palestinians needing medical treatment unavailable in Gaza.
The Rafah crossing will be supervised by European Union border patrol agents with a small Palestinian presence.
Historically, Israel and Egypt have vetted Palestinians applying to cross. Fearing that Israel could use the crossing to push Palestinians out of the enclave, Egypt has repeatedly said it must be open for them to enter and exit Gaza.
A 3-year-old Palestinian was killed when Israel navy hit tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis, Palestinian hospital authorities said.
According to Nasser hospital, which received the body, the attack happened in Muwasi, a tent camp area on Gaza’s coast.
More than 520 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire went into effect on Oct. 10, according to Gaza's health ministry. The casualties since the ceasefire are among the over 71,800 Palestinians killed since the start of Israel’s offensive, according to ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians.
The ministry, which is part of Gaza's Hamas-led government, keeps detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.
Israeli troops seized the Rafah crossing in May 2024, calling it part of efforts to combat arms-smuggling for the militant Hamas group. The crossing was briefly opened for the evacuation of medical patients during a ceasefire in early 2025.
Israel had resisted reopening the Rafah crossing, but the recovery of the remains of the last hostage in Gaza cleared the way to move forward.
The reopening is seen as a key step as the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement moves into its second phase.
The truce halted more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas that began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Its first phase called for the exchange of all hostages held in Gaza for hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel, an increase in badly needed humanitarian aid and a partial pullback of Israeli troops.
The second phase of the ceasefire deal is more complicated. It calls for installing the new Palestinian committee to govern Gaza, deploying an international security force, disarming Hamas and taking steps to begin rebuilding.
Federman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
This story has been corrected to show that the latest figure from Gaza's Health Ministry says 71,800 Palestinians have been killed.
Ambulances line up to enter the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Egypt, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Arafat)
Juman Al-Najjar, a 3-year-old Palestinian patient, looks out from a vehicle with other patients in Khan Younis as they head to the Rafah crossing, leaving the Gaza Strip for medical treatment abroad, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinian patients wave from a vehicle in Khan Younis on their way to the Rafah crossing, as they leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment abroad, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A U.N. vehicle escorts a bus carrying Palestinian patients in Khan Younis as they head to the Rafah crossing, leaving the Gaza Strip for medical treatment abroad, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinian patients board a vehicle in Khan Younis on their way to the Rafah crossing, as they leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment abroad, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Juman Al-Najjar, a 3-year-old Palestinian patient, looks out from a vehicle with other patients in Khan Younis as they head to the Rafah crossing, leaving the Gaza Strip for medical treatment abroad, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Mourners pray beside the body of Iyad Abu Rabi, 3, who was killed when an Israeli strike hit tents sheltering displaced people along the coast of Khan Younis, according to hospital officials, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Khadija Abu Rabi cradles the body of her son, Iyad, 3, who was killed when an Israeli strike hit tents sheltering displaced people along the coast of Khan Younis, according to hospital officials, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Khadija Abu Rabi mourns over the body of her son, Iyad, 3, who was killed when an Israeli strike hit tents sheltering displaced people along the coast of Khan Younis, according to hospital officials, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
A crane enters the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing to the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Egypt, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Arafat)
Trucks carrying humanitarian aids line up to enter the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing, heading for inspection by Israeli authorities before entering the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Egypt, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Arafat)
Ambulances line up to enter the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing on the way to the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Egypt, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Arafat)
