By Joey Roulette
Copyright reuters
SummaryCompaniesArtemis 2 mission could launch earlier than AprilArtemis 2 uses Boeing and Northrop Grumman’s SLS rocket, Lockheed Martin’s Orion capsuleArtemis 3 planned for 2027 with SpaceX’s Starship
Sept 23 (Reuters) – NASA officials on Tuesday said the agency’s first crewed flight in its Artemis program – a trip around the moon and back – is on track for launch in April and could potentially be moved up to February.
The space agency’s Artemis program is the flagship U.S. effort to return humans to the moon, a multibillion dollar series of missions that rivals a similar effort by China, which is aiming for a 2030 astronaut moon landing.
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Artemis 2, a 10-day flight in which a crew of four astronauts will fly around the moon and back, is a precursor test to the agency’s first astronaut moon landing since 1972.
That mission, Artemis 3, is a far more ambitious and complex endeavor currently planned for 2027 and involving a moon lander variant of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
Artemis 2 involves NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, built by Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab and Northrop Grumman (NOC.N), opens new tab, and its Orion capsule, built by Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), opens new tab. Last year, NASA delayed the mission by several months to April 2026.
“We intend to keep that commitment,” Lakiesha Hawkins, an acting senior official in NASA’s exploration unit, said during a news conference on Tuesday of the 2026 date.
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She added that the readiness of NASA’s SLS and Orion spacecraft could potentially warrant an earlier launch date, but that safety considerations will ultimately guide when the mission launches.
The Orion capsule will ride atop the giant, 322-foot-tall (98 meters) SLS rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the first time the spacecraft duo will fly with humans.
Artemis 2 will fly astronauts Reid Wiseman, the mission’s commander who last flew on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station in 2014; Victor Glover, the pilot who flew to space in 2020 on a SpaceX ISS mission; Christina Koch, a mission specialist who flew on a Soyuz ISS mission in 2019; and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, another mission specialist who will fly to space for the first time.
Hansen’s inclusion will mark the first Canadian to fly in the vicinity of the moon.
Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
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Joey RouletteThomson ReutersJoey Roulette is a space reporter for Reuters covering the business and politics of the global space industry, often focusing on space power competition and how commercial interests intersect with international relations. He was part of a team that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for Reuters’ coverage of Elon Musk’s business empire. On the space beat for roughly a decade, Joey previously worked for the New York Times, the Verge, and various publications in Florida.Email
