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U.S. Races To Find Second F-15 Crew Member; NASA To Give Status Briefing On Artemis II Mission; Interview With Former Senator And Former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson; NASA Briefing As Artemis II Reaches Halfway Point To The Moon; Engineers Troubleshoot Toilet Issues On Orion Spacecraft; Artemis II Now Closer To The Moon Than Earth; Gas Prices Keep Climbing Amid Iran War As Spring Travel Picks Up. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired April 04, 2026 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[17:00:36]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean here in New York.

And we begin this hour with breaking news as the war with Iran enters now into its sixth week, President Trump doubling down on his threats against Iran to open the critical Strait of Hormuz.

Writing on social media, quote, "Remember when I gave Iran ten days to make a deal or open up the Hormuz Strait? Time is running out. 48 hours before all hell will rain down on them."

Now, that message comes as U.S. forces continue to search for the missing crew member of an F-15 fighter jet that was shot down over Iran. Sources telling CNN, the other crew member has been rescued and is now in U.S. custody.

There is video that appears to show part of the search for the missing crew member. The footage was verified by CNN. And you see, it shows a low flying aircraft there.

Let's bring in CNN chief global affairs correspondent Matthew Chance, who joins us more -- who joins us now with more on the very latest, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, as the U.S. Tries to find the second crew member shot down in an F-15 combat aircraft over Iran, the Iranian authorities are also stepping up efforts in a race to track down and capture the missing American.

Iranian state media have been re-upping the promise of a reward, offering tens of thousands of dollars to any Iranian civilian who finds the missing crew member and turns them over to the regime.

So far, though, that search appears to have been unsuccessful. Iranian officials are denying reports that the individual has already been captured or detained.

But Iranian military officials are squeezing as much propaganda value out of recent U.S. military setbacks as they possibly can.

A spokesperson calling the downing of two U.S. warplanes yesterday, as well as a reported attack on a U.S. combat helicopter as, quote, "a black and humiliating Friday for the United States and Israel" both engaged in military operations across the country.

Iran is also vowing to regain full control of the skies over the Islamic Republic, using what a military statement called the, quote, "modern air defense systems" built by the young and proud scientists of the country.

It's a further challenge to the idea that its military that's been battered by U.S. and Israeli strikes can no longer put up a fight.

Jessica, back to you.

DEAN: All right. Matthew Chance, thank you for that.

And let's bring in CNN global affairs analyst and Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour. Karim's currently a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thanks so much for being here with us. I appreciate it.

Let's start there with this missing crew member, that search continues to find that person. But this adds a whole new layer to this war. Now that we do have a missing crew member, that that plane has been shot down.

In your estimation, what is -- what does this mean, both for the U.S. and Iran as we move into now, the sixth week of this?

KARIM SADJADPOUR, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST AND IRAN EXPERT: Well, Jessica, this is a regime which came to power in 1979, taking American diplomats hostage for 444 days. So they have a long history of using American officials, diplomats, taking them hostage for their own leverage.

And this is something I pray that this pilot, is safe and is not taken by the regime and is alive.

I think it's also clear that if you look at the statements, listen to the statements of Iranian officials, they feel like they're winning this war. They believe that they've defied both America and Israel and they don't seem to be right now feeling a sense of urgency that they need to compromise.

DEAN: And so to that end, Karim, does Iran's strategy shift at this point, or does it -- do they keep the course they've been on?

SADJADPOUR: Their strategy has been much more consistent than President Trump. and that they have you know, early on, they took the -- they closed the Strait of Hormuz. They see, you know, the spike in oil prices as a critical part of their strategy to sour American public support, American public opinion for the war.

[17:04:48]

SADJADPOUR: They also have been sowing chaos throughout the Persian Gulf and have projected this idea of resistance and defiance. And I think that is going to continue.

And, you know, one of the challenges I think we have, Jessica, is that President Trump keeps threatening to destroy Iran. And you have a regime which is not a reflection of its -- the national interest of its people. And so this is a regime willing to see its country destroyed, see its people destroyed, rather than compromise on its -- on its ideology.

DEAN: Right. And it seems like that is a really important piece of information to remember as we continue on with this, is that there is that that pull between those two things, which is the president, as we just heard from him like, this is with the Strait of Hormuz saying that he's going to rain down hell on them if they don't do what he wants in 48 hours.

We heard it from him earlier this week when he said he wants to blast them to the -- threatened to blast them back to his -- in his words, the stone age.

But what you're saying is to remember to think about it from the, you know, who's running Iran and what they're -- what they're willing to give and what they're willing to put at risk.

SADJADPOUR: That's absolutely right. And ultimately, the U.S.-Iran Cold War, which is now obviously a hot war, has been persisting for 47 years, and it's not going to end until we have a different government in Tehran.

And so our most important allies in that endeavor are the people of Iran, the vast majority of whom deeply dislike this regime. And you want to enlist those people as allies against the regime.

And when you threaten to destroy the country or bomb them back to the stone age, you're alienating those allies that we need.

So, you know, militarily, obviously, the United States has been dominant in this war, but when it comes to our strategic communications, the information war, the political war, you know, unfortunately it's been lacking.

DEAN: Let's talk about the Strait of Hormuz for a moment just because the president was talking about that today as well. In terms of where things go from there, Iran has said it's going to allow essential goods through the strait. India has purchased oil from Iran for the first time in years. We've seen other developments.

How would you assess the current situation there in the Strait of Hormuz?

SADJADPOUR: Well, Iran is essentially trying to normalize control over the strait. This is an international waterway. It's not an Iranian waterway, but they are trying to formalize their control over it.

And this is something which is, you know, for the United States, Europe, and especially our partners in the Persian Gulf, you know, this is inimical to our interests.

And given the fact that when you look at the oil, the natural gas, the fertilizer that passes through the strait, upwards of 70 -- 80 percent of it is bound for Asia -- China, India, South Korea.

I think it's critical that President Trump tried to take a diplomatic approach and enlist the support of some of these Asian countries, some of whom are our allies, and say, listen, this is not only a threat to U.S. national interests, but it's a threat to global trade for Iran to turn the Strait of Hormuz into their own Panama Canal.

DEAN: All right. Karim Sadjadpour, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

SADJADPOUR: Thank you.

Traveling at about one mile every second, the crew of Artemis II halfway to the moon now. We're live from Johnson Space Center as NASA prepares to brief reporters on that mission.

And if you're traveling here on earth this holiday weekend, you won't be going that fast, obviously, but filling up your car might feel like it costs as much as going to the moon.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[17:08:33]

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DEAN: Any moment, NASA will be giving a status update on its Artemis II mission. The four astronauts are now more than halfway to the moon, traveling in space at about 2,300 miles per hour.

The mission will mark the first time humans return to the moon's orbit in more than 50 years.

And CNN correspondent Randi Kaye is joining us now from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Randi, what should we expect to hear about today?

RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We are going to get an update on all things related to the Artemis II mission. They took a selfie of the Orion capsule today. It's pretty cool if you take a look at it. They had a camera affixed on the wing and they were able to take a selfie of themselves in space of the capsule, at least in space.

We also know that they were planning on maybe doing another burn, which would sort of fine tune their path to the moon. We're not sure if that's going to happen or not, and they were going to test manual piloting the capsule once again. They don't think they're going to need to do that, but they want to make sure that they know how to do that and that it works while they're in space.

But we had a really great morning here. We were able to look to go and visit mission control here at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. We had a look at what they're doing. They are in touch with the Orion capsule and the astronauts 24/7. They work in three shifts.

They are really the nerve center of what is happening here on this mission. And the astronauts were asleep at the time, but they were certainly busy inside.

And they're very focused on what's happening on Monday, which is this lunar flyby. That's going to happen when they go the furthest from earth than any human has that. At least that's what they're expecting.

[17:14:46]

KAYE: And they will go to the far side of the moon where they will see a lava flow. They expect to see craters.

So there's a lot of excitement about it, but there's also -- it can also be really nerve-wracking for those here.

We talked to one of the flight controllers about that. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: What is the anxiety level like during that period when you'll lose communications with them during the moon flyby?

JUDD FRIELING, ARTEMIS II FLIGHT DIRECTOR: I wouldn't say it was anxiety. We know we're going to -- they're going to end up on the next side of the moon. And, like I said, we'll take a break, a breather, probably, you know, some good, you know, times to, to reflect. And we'll meet them on the other side.

KAYE: Isn't it uneasy though, without the communication? You got to be a little bit uneasy.

FRIELING: Well, we know why it's -- we know why we're out of communication. So I wouldn't be uneasy. We have loss of communication events, you know, on ISS all the time. It's not a big deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: You got to love their confidence, Jessica, right. And they're also actually going to lose communication briefly with Artemis II again during reentry.

DEAN: Yes it is. The confidence is very reassuring there. That is -- that is true.

Now the crew experienced another issue with the spacecraft's toilet. I know we've been talking about that a lot. What is the issue now?

KAYE: Well, right now they are able to use the toilet for solid waste, we understand. But they have had an issue with it. It's an ongoing issue. In fact, the mission specialist Kathleen Cook on board calls herself the space plumber. That's what it's come down to.

But there is urine that is frozen in the line and they're not able to expel the waste from the capsule. So now they are using these urine bags for now, and they're still trying to get this fixed for them.

DEAN: All right. Well, more to come. We will await that update from NASA.

Randi Kaye for us there in Houston. Thank you so much for that.

And joining us to talk more about this remarkable feat, former NASA administrator and astronaut, also former senator, Bill Nelson. He served during the Biden administration helping oversee the launch of the uncrewed Artemis I flight test that helped prepare the agency for the critical mission that's now underway.

Thanks so much for being here with us.

As someone who has helped implement so many steps to get us to this point, I first just want to know what your thoughts are here about four days into this mission and the successful launch for Artemis II.

BILL NELSON, FORMER SENATOR AND FORMER NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Everything is going well. The crew is -- you couldn't have done better in central casting on Hollywood. This is a fantastic crew and this has been a long time coming. This is multi administration. The capsule or the spacecraft Orion that the crew named "Integrity" actually started back in the George W. Bush administration.

And then through Obama, particularly with the legislation that we passed in 2010 that set this off on the direction that it is. The first Trump administration continued it.

And then the Biden administration, when I was the head of NASA obviously, has brought it up to this point for the second Trump administration.

NASA really ought to be and has been nonpartisan. And I think you're seeing the fruits of that effort in this mission to the moon.

DEAN: Yes. I think every, every -- all Americans are really proud of, of what they're doing. And it is -- and have watched with awe to see what we're capable of. You know, it's incredible to see.

We're going to get an update here in just a little bit. What are you kind of watching for as we continue through the next several days?

NELSON: Well, they are on a course that they do not have to have any more burns. That burn was determined in what they called TLI, translunar injection burn. And that was, I think, Thursday night.

So it will take them around. The gravity of the moon will sling them back and it'll put them in a trajectory to splash down off of San Diego.

So the next as far as I'm concerned, other than the spacecraft continuing to work perfectly as it has, the next big thing is the reentry into the atmosphere, the heat shield working, and then the parachutes working and all of that working.

The Good Lord willing, they'll be safely back on earth.

DEAN: Yes. And just remind everyone what we're building toward here. Why orbit the moon right now?

[17:19:50]

NELSON: Well, this is just the first step. We will have a series that will now continue to land. Then we're going to have a moon base. We're going to do research on the south pole of the moon. The south pole is where we think the water is. And if there's water, that's hydrogen and oxygen, then you have rocket fuel.

And all of that can help us as we learn to exist and survive in a very hostile environment such as the south pole in order for us to be able to venture further. And the first target there would be to go to Mars.

DEAN: It's amazing. We also have these photos that NASA has released, taken by the Artemis II crew, and one shows the earth through the Orion spacecraft. The other is an incredibly detailed shot of earth.

The first one was described by NASA mission control at Johnson Space Center in Houston as a reminder that no matter how far we go, we are still one world watching, hoping, and reaching higher.

What are your thoughts as you're looking at these photos? And I know you've obviously been involved with this program for a very long time in a variety of ways. What are you thinking now as we get these brand- new incredible photos of earth?

NELSON: Well, it happens to any space flier, but especially to these space fliers who are way out there and are going to be beyond 240,000 miles. At that point, they look back and you can cover the moon with your thumb -- you can cover earth with your thumb as you are looking back at our home.

Even from the space shuttle, which I flew on as you orbit the earth every 90 minutes, your perspective changes and you're suddenly looking at home. And home doesn't have all of these divisions that we have to deal with on a daily basis.

You don't see borders. You don't see political divisions. You don't see racial divisions or religious divisions. What you see is our home and we're all in this together.

And the further away that you get from earth as these astronauts are experiencing now, it all the more drives that message home on that small orb surrounded in the dark of space is everything that we know about our lives and our friends and families. And there it is.

DEAN: It's kind of incredible. It's really amazing to see.

In terms of NASA itself and this mission to go to the moon. This has been going on for decades now. How are you seeing it evolve?

NELSON: Well, I think we're in a space race again. This time not the Soviet Union, this time China. China's space program is basically a military space program. And we want to make sure that we have the high ground so that another out in space won't have the advantage.

We would hope that they would cooperate with us. And isn't it interesting, after all of that race with the Soviet Union, that now Russia is our companion in space on the space shuttle, on the space station. They operate and are on the space station with us every day.

And by the way, with the adventurism of President Putin and all that he's doing in Ukraine, this is the only point of cooperative contact with the Russian government is the NASA program cooperating with their cosmonauts to go to and from low earth orbit to the International Space Station.

That's a phenomenon in itself of political cooperation that otherwise we do not have with the country of Russia.

DEAN: It is interesting indeed.

All right. Bill Nelson, thank you for being here with us. We really appreciate it.

We're going to go to that press conference now that NASA is holding. Let's listen in.

[17:24:44]

(LIVE EVENT: NASA PRESS CONFERENCE)

JOHN HONEYCUTT, ARTEMIS II MISSION MANAGEMENT TEAM CHAIR: None of those were any increase in mission risk or impacts to the mission. The team has not asked the MMT to take on any additional risk so far.

As part of today's meeting, we did get an outreach (ph) from the -- from the SLS team. You know, Judd said a couple of days ago that it looked like things went perfectly through launch. And the data certainly bears that out for SLS.

The bottom line is, is the SLS rocket performance was again, just like Artemis I, in fact, a little bit better right down the middle. And our insertion accuracy was within less than 1 percent.

You know, I've talked off and on relative to things that are important to me throughout the mission primarily with entry interface, right? Because that's the big one that gets us home and gets, gets the crew boots back on earth.

But it certainly doesn't go without mentioning that, you know, the first step in that is getting the rocket ready. And then the next step is having SLS deliver the spacecraft to the point in space where it needs to be. And so it did that with 99.92 percent accuracy. That was a big bull's eye. And I'm very happy about that.

So with that, I'll turn it over to you, Judd.

FRIELING: Ok. Thanks, John. Let's see. On the back half of crews day yesterday they performed CPR demo just to figure out where would be a good spot and integrity to do CPR if they needed to do that. They had a public affairs brief.

We also did a test of the search, acquire and track mode of the Orion communication system. So that's if Orion for some reason loses its pointing knowledge, then it can go acquire communication with earth on its own.

Crew did check out of their med kits. They did some -- also Nat Geo event there. They also had -- we also did a DSN emergency comm. Test again to test out the ranging on the emergency comm system to make sure that was all working. Everything went well.

Jeremy also had another CSA public affairs conference, planned medical conference. During the night, we tried to vent the wastewater tank that's attached to the toilet. We had problems with that due to suspected blockage, we think probably due to ice.

So we directed the crew overnight to use their collapsible contingency urine devices, just like they did on flight day one.

Let's see. This morning, we had our normal, planning conferences. We also had, the private family conferences and also the private psychological conferences that were planned.

Additionally, we did a -- another -- we're going to do another test of the PWD and take videos of that just so we can -- we can get that data to the engineering teams.

The planned trajectory correction for today, OTC 2 was canceled because again, Orion is doing such a great job. We had great insertion accuracy. We had a good TLI burn. So we ended up canceling that.

A benefit of canceling that too, side benefit, it allowed us to, to put Orion space capsule in, in an attitude that will put sun on the vent of that wastewater tank to see if we can try to heat that up and get that wastewater vented.

We were partially successful. We got about half of the tanks out of the -- half of the urine out of those tanks. So we'll continue to troubleshoot on that.

Later today, we'll do the manually piloting demo part two, which will test out the six degree of freedom versus the three degree of freedom modes of the capsule so we can get detailed information on how those behave.

Well also -- the crew will videotape the exercise device so they can, we can get engineering data on how that exercise device is working.

We'll also do some, another VIP event for the Canadian Space Agency. We'll do some imaging, taking pictures out the window. And then the crew has their plan medical conferences. That's all I have. And I'll hand it over to Debbie and she'll talk

about the Orion systems.

DEBBIE KORTH, ORION DEPUTY PROGRAM MANAGER: All right. Thank you, Judd.

So yes, I'm pleased to report that the Orion spacecraft, it's in very good health, continues to operate normally on its way to the moon. So no major anomalies that we're working at this time.

[17:29:45]

KORTH: I'm going to pull up the first image, if you could, of the exterior view of the spacecraft. So this is a beautiful view of the Orion with the sun shining off of that PSIox tape that covers all of those TPS back shell tiles.

We actually yesterday performed a routine external inspection of the entire spacecraft to make sure that it's healthy for that return trip when it needs to come back home.

[17:29:56]

And again, please report found no damage, any tiles, no major tape removals or anything. So, looked really good. We did side by side comparisons to Artemis I, actually, looks quite a bit better than even Artemis I did at this point in the mission.

We also -- this is image here, I guess, I should mention is from our optical communication system. So, it's been downloading gigabytes of data throughout the mission. So, this is one of the high-resolution images that we got of Orion throughout the day so far. Let's see.

We are still continuing to troubleshoot the urine venting, as Judd mentioned. Young did have a partial successful venting after the maneuvers that Judd mentioned, getting some sunlight on that vent. The vents are located -- the primary vents located near that umbilical, that white block, you see at the bottom there, between the crew module and the crew module adapter.

And so, we think it's probably been seeing more shadow than anticipated. And so, by heating that up, we were able to get some of the urine out, but clearly didn't solve the whole problem. So, continuing to troubleshoot that.

I should mention, you know, these is a common occurrence. We saw these kinds of events on shuttle as well. So, we have some tools in the toolkit. We'll be looking out on what else we can do there. The toilet itself is operable. You know, this is a test flight. We are figuring out how these systems work together, but it is operable, and we have redundancy to get us to the mission.

Let's see. I guess we'll go to the next photograph. This is actually inside the spacecraft. It's maybe a little dark to see. We had the crew members turn the lights off or download, so they can actually take some really great images out of the windows. So, I'm not sure if you can see, but I think, Jeremy may be taking some photographs out the window, and Christina is back there working on the P.C. -- on her laptop computer.

So, anyway, beautiful view of the inside. Most the daytime pictures we see are really lit up. So, it was nice to see the crew performing some of the other operations in the capsule. So, I guess the spacecraft continues to operate nominally. Our team remains hard at work, you know, making sure we are testing out all of the systems, getting through all the flight test objectives, and continuing to work the minor things that we have on our list.

So, with that, I'll hand it over to Kelsey.

KELSEY YOUNG, DIRECTORATE LEAD, NASA'S SCIENCE MISSION: Yes. Really pleased to be here today. We are now two days away from the lunar flyby, which is planned for Monday. So, as we just heard earlier, the moon is now closer to the crew than the Earth is. So, we are really gearing up to support the flyby.

April 1st was an exciting day to launch, because we have some really exciting observations planned for the day that the crew will actually fly by the moon. Actually, have a visual video to show you guys of in just one minute, the entire several hour flyby. So, if you could pull that -- pull that up, that would be great.

When they start the flyby, they'll be able to see big chunks of the near side. That's the side that we can look up at night when they are observing the moon, and be able to see that near side as well. As they get closer, they will start to focus on that near side, far side transition.

Again, the far side is the side of the moon that always faces away from our own planet. So, as they get closer, they will be able to see features that human eyes have never before seen. Earlier, oriental was mentioned, this is a really exciting scientific destination. They got eyes on it yesterday from pretty far away. They will have an opportunity during the flyby to spend a lot of time checking it out.

You see Earth set that where earth disappeared behind the far side of the moon, and you are about to see it pop out the other side. Of course, an earth rise. And then, a really interesting opportunity we have for Monday's flyby is we will actually from the vantage point of integrity, the sun will pass behind the moon from their perspective, creating a solar eclipse, and from a perspective that is very, very unique to this mission, it will be a roughly 53 minute eclipse, and then, they'll see sunrise, where the sun pops out the other side of the Moon.

There is a lot of science objectives baked into what the crew are going to be during -- doing during the flyby. Those science objectives were developed by our lunar science team. I think, we can go to a video of where the lunar science team is currently stationed in building 30 across campus here in the science evaluation room.

We developed a set of 10 lunar science objectives that were based on our lunar science and planetary science, driving questions in Lunar and planetary science.

And as a result, we developed A targeting plan for the crew to follow on Monday. They are actually reviewing that plan today. They all have about an hour, but kept on their timelines to review the plan for Monday, and we are looking forward to hearing their observations and ultimately, of course, seeing the photos that they downlink. The crew has spent many, many months training in a variety of different environments to make these release --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right. We are listening to NASA, giving an update there on Artemis II, very positive from all of them, describing what's to come with the flyby.

We are going to get a quick break, and they are taking questions. So, we'll get back to that.

[17:34:53]

Just a quick break, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: NASA officials taking questions and talking more about the Artemis II mission. We are going to go back to them now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JUDD FRIELING, FLIGHT DIRECTOR, ARTEMIS II: Yes. So, the toilet is it technically will work with number one right now, but we just want to keep the tanks half full right now until we figure out what's going on with the vent line. Absolutely, it's still go for number two, has -- and as far as the collapsible contingency urine devices, each crew member has two of those, but they can be either vented overboard, which we have proven that that still works, or we could be collected in contingency water bags. But we don't anticipate that we'll have to do that, since we can still vent the -- those units overboard.

[17:40:06]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. Next --

(CROSSTALK)

KORTH: Urine tank is in the vehicle, is only about the size of a small -- like, your office trash can. So, we want to make sure we can empty it out before we put anything else in there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you both.

Next up, we'll take a question from Eric Berger.

ERIC BERGER, SENIOR SPACE EDITOR, ARS TECHNICA: Hi. Eric Berger, Ars Technica. Two questions. I guess, the first one is for Mr. Honeycutt. You know, you guys come out here, and everyone sort of calm. And you see in the video, things are calm. Can you just kind of take us inside the MMT and or sort of behind the scenes, and just talk about, is everything kind of as calm, sort of as it appears, like, is everything under control? Because, you know, if I go back to sort of the shuttle days, it was kind of the same kind of thing, but behind the scenes, you know, you find out that there is -- it's fairly frenetic.

So, I just like to get a little bit of sort of view of -- because it looks like, you guys, you know, it looks like things are going really well.

And then, a question, either for Judd or Debbie. You mentioned the six Dolph and three Dolph control test today. For Artemis III, Artemis IV, a nominal mission. How much of the flying on those missions will be manual versus do you anticipate it being almost all automated, unless there is some kind of contingency necessary? Thank you.

JOHN HONEYCUTT, CHAIR, ARTEMIS II MISSION MANAGEMENT TEAM: And so, you know, I've been accused to not worrying or getting excited about things and kind of even keel, and I see that in the rest of the team, in the meetings every day.

Now, you know, we spent a great deal of time training, and the training team gave us some really hard things to work throughout training. And so, I think it's a tribute to the amount we trained about and how good the teams are working together.

So, it's -- I've been very pleased with the way that the Orion the team, the MER team, and FOD have been integrating across each other prior to -- prior to coming to the MMT. So, we got pretty crisp story. So, it's, you know, it's been, we have had some things to talk about, the mentee is asking good questions across the board. I think, I'm getting really good answers from the technical teams that are in the room presenting such.

I don't have any doubt at all. If we run into something that gets a little tougher. I think, things will still remain calm. I think, the teams get ahead of it before they get to the MMT, and generally come back with good recommendations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As for your second question about manual versus automatic control on future missions, anticipation is that most of the time accrue will be using automatic mode, but whenever we are trying to rendezvous with a target vehicle, that's the time that we would be using a manual mode so that we have that, you know, visual cues to closing rates and things like that, so that we can, you know, rendezvous there.

So, I don't know, Debbie, if you want to expand on that, no?

KORTH: No, I think that's pretty much covers it. I mean, I think part of the demo is really seeing how the handling qualities might degrade if you ended up in a three dolls situation versus six stop, and we plan to fly in six stops. So, this is all about, like I said, a test flight, figuring how this vehicle handles. And I think, this manually piloting demo we got part of it --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: So, official -- we are listening to NASA officials answering questions about Artemis II, learning more about what's to come, how things are going. We are going to take a break, but we will join -- rejoin them when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:48:23]

DEAN: OK. We are going to take you back to Houston now, where NASA officials are continuing to talk about what's to come with Artemis II, including Monday's flyby. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

YOUNG: -- to them. So, we put a lot of effort in the last several weeks into eclipse planning, in addition to continuing to flush out the lunar targets in their own right,

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are going to take a few questions from our phone bridge, next. If you are in the phone and you have a question, reminder to please press star one to get into the queue.

We'll start with Nell Greenfieldboyce with NPR.

NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY REPORTER, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: -- for taking my question. This is another science-related question.

You talked about maximizing the science. Could you talk about, like, actually, the science questions that you want to address, for example, with the eclipse? I'm not clear. Have people seen an eclipse like this before? And if not, like, what, what will the astronauts be able to contribute that would tell you something about, you know, the sun, like, what are the actual science questions?

And similarly, with the lunar targets? I mean, I guess, you know, people on the street might feel like, well, don't we have a lot of pictures the moon and orbiters and things like that, like, what are the actual questions? What is the -- what is -- what is -- what is being maximized in terms of what you will be able to know based on what the astronauts are doing? Thank you.

YOUNG: Oh, I'm so glad somebody asked me about science objectives.

Absolutely. We have, like I said, 10 lunar and planetary and solar system science questions for the mission that ultimately feed our targeting plan. So, I'm going to take your question in two halves. The first part of your question was eclipse focused.

Yes, Apollo crew saw similar eclipses, which, again, in this context, means that from the vantage point of the crew capsule, the moon is blocking the sun from view. [17:50:06]

What's different about the eclipse for the crew here is that, you know, for us -- I don't know if any of you saw any of the total solar eclipses over the last few years. Actually, we are coming up on the two-year anniversary of the North American Eclipse from 2024.

What's unique about viewing eclipses from the Earth's surface is that from our vantage point, the moon and the sun and the sky appear approximately the same size. And that's why you can see that beautiful ring of fire when the moon moves, you know, take center stage in front of the sun.

Of course, integrity has a much different view than we do. And so, the moon appears much, much, much larger in their view than it does from us here on Earth.

And so, that's why, in that visual you saw earlier, the sun appears as a relatively small disk. And that means that instead of the ring of fire eclipse that we see here on Earth, they will actually see the solar corona, but only part of it.

And so, we have science questions designed around looking at solar activity at the time of the eclipse. And so, they will actually be able to make, you know, unique observations on Monday, April 6th, and what the Sun is doing at the time.

We have included prompts for them to describe the features that they can see in the solar corona, which can ultimately help solar scientists understand these processes in general, especially given the unique vantage point that the crew are going to have relative to our orbiting spacecraft here on Earth, and our observers, our scientists here on Earth as well.

Jumping to the second part of your question on just non-eclipse- related science and lunar science, we do -- again, we took our driving science questions from our community documents, our Science Mission Directorate, Decadal Surveys, which represent the highly prioritized science objectives that the entire community --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: OK, that's Kelsey Young, talking about some of the objectives for this flyby of moon -- I'm sorry, on Monday, a lot happening. We are tracking it all here. We are going to take a break. We'll be right back.

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[17:56:21]

DEAN: This Easter Weekend, gas prices are surging. The national average for a gallon of regular gas, $4.10. That is $0.12 higher than last week, $0.90 higher than this time last month.

The increase comes as drivers are hitting the road for the holiday and is due to the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, as the war with Iran enters its sixth week now.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino, joining us now from the New Jersey Turnpike. Gloria, what are you hearing from drivers?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NEWSOURCE NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, chances are that if you are in the tri-state area, you are likely to pass right through this intersection here in New Jersey, and you are also likely to stop right here, perhaps to fill up your gas tank, because New Jersey has slightly lower gas prices than what you might find in New York City.

Now, let's talk about where gas prices are at before we get to the drivers. As you said, the current average is at $4.10. The weekly average is right around $3.98. And compare that to the last month average -- the average a month ago, I should say, which was at $3.20 according to AAA.

Now, gas prices have soared 37 percent since the U.S. Israel attacks on Iran on February 28th. And the biggest driver of this increase is, of course, the conflict that's happening in Iran, which has created a massive supply disruption. That disruption has affected the global oil markets, reduced availability, and the price of crude oil has increased, which has driven up gas prices.

And all of this is happening as we are about to enter a pretty significant travel period here in the United States, we are in the middle of the Easter holiday right now. It's spring break for some people and drivers have been telling us that they are having to adjust, while others say they simply have no choice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I definitely drive less and whatever I visit upstate or go out of -- out of New York, I try to fill up my car, just to -- just to save a little bit of (INAUDIBLE).

I actually canceled my travel plans.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) where will you going to go?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was -- my sister lives upstate, so, I go visit her often, actually, and with the price -- gas price going up, I kind of had to, like, cut down on visiting her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Store too much the money. Very high price.

I cannot travel now. The ticket is too high. (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: So, some drivers even going as far as shortening their trips or not traveling as often. And just to give you a little bit more context about what's happening around the rest of the country, California is seeing the highest prices. They are seeing $5.92 a gallon, while places like Oklahoma have the least expensive, $3.92 below the $4 mark, unlike much of the rest of the country. Jessica? DEAN: All right. Gloria Pazmino for us there in New Jersey. Thank you so much, and we'll be right back.

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