NASA hopes to launch a new mission to the moon in the coming months

While Artemis II won’t land, its successor, Artemis III, is expected to launch and land on the surface of the moon mid-2027. NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to build the vehicle that will carry astronauts to the moon.

The Artemis II mission that will take a crew of astronauts around the moon and back to Earth is expected to launch no earlier than February 6, 2026.

NASA is moving up a key test of its Artemis II rocket as unusually cold weather grips Central Florida, forcing officials to adjust schedules at Kennedy Space Center. The region is expecting sub-freezing temperatures arriving on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

NASA is getting ready to launch its massive, fully expendable rocket for the first crewed flight to the Moon since Apollo. The agency’s new era of spaceflight comes with a few parts from its past, specifically three rocket engines that have previously flown on space shuttle missions.

Artemis 2's Space Launch System rocket core stage was fitted with 4 RS-25 engines at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Footage courtesy: NASA/Evan Deroche/Steven Seipel/Eric Bordelon Time-lapsed by Space.

The latest test of a next-generation rocket booster for NASA’s Artemis moon program ended with a violent structural failure, abruptly cutting short what was supposed to be a carefully choreographed demonstration of future launch hardware.

A pair of NASA spacecraft know as the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) to be launched to Mars by a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket. ESCAPADE will study how the "solar wind interacts with Mars’ magnetic environment and how this interaction drives the planet’s atmospheric escape,