Artemis II: NASA targets March Moon mission with crewed loop around the Moon
Artemis II: NASA targets March Moon mission with crewed loop around the Moon
NASA plans an early March launch for Artemis II, sending four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the Moon following a successful wet dress rehearsal.
NASA is targeting early March to launch Artemis II, a 10-day crewed mission that would send four astronauts on a loop around the Moon, the first such flight since the Apollo era. The mission will ride atop NASA's Space Launch System rocket, a towering 98-meter-tall vehicle, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It marks humankind's farthest trip into space and serves as a crucial stepping stone toward a future lunar landing.
The team recently completed a wet dress rehearsal at the launch site, a critical pre-launch test in which the rocket is fueled and the countdown is run. After a hydrogen fuel leak paused the first rehearsal earlier this month, engineers addressed seals and filters and demonstrated the ability to fully tank the rocket within the planned timeline. These fixes paved the way for the next major milestone: a potential launch on March 6, with a March 7 window in the UK.
The Artemis II crew features three Americans—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch—and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. They will enter quarantine ahead of launch and then embark on a mission that will place them in lunar orbit while returning them safely to Earth. Artemis II is designed to pave the way for Artemis III, which aims to land astronauts on the Moon in the years ahead.
If all goes according to plan, the mission will demonstrate NASA's ability to fly humans beyond low Earth orbit once again and will help chart a course for even more ambitious exploration, potentially including future crewed missions to Mars.
