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Space24 September 2025
By AFP
The unit of NASA’s Artemis II ngo (left to right): NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman (seated), Victor Glover, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. (NASA)
NASA connected Tuesday said it was connected way to nonstop astronauts to orbit the Moon successful aboriginal 2026, arsenic the United States races China to instrumentality to the lunar surface.
Multiple setbacks person delayed the manned mission, dubbed Artemis 2, which is present scheduled for April 2026 astatine the latest and could travel arsenic soon arsenic February.
"We mean to support that commitment," said Lakiesha Hawkins, a apical NASA official, astatine a property briefing Tuesday.
Related: Our Moon Is Drifting Away. Here's What We Can Expect to Happen.
Three US astronauts and 1 Canadian comprise the crew, which is expected to beryllium the first to orbit the Moon successful much than fractional a century.
But the ngo volition not onshore determination – achieving that extremity is the purpose of Artemis 3.
The US abstraction agency's Artemis program hopes to instrumentality humans to the Moon arsenic China forges up with a rival effort that is targeting 2030 astatine the latest for its archetypal crewed mission.
US President Donald Trump's 2nd word successful the White House has seen the medication heap unit connected NASA to accelerate its progress.
The Republican leader, who announced the Artemis programme during his archetypal term, wants the US abstraction bureau to return to the Moon arsenic soon arsenic imaginable and besides voyage to Mars.
Both efforts program to yet found bases connected the Moon.
The Artemis I SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft astatine NASA's Kennedy Space Center successful Florida successful March 2022.(NASA/Frank Michaux)
The Trump medication has referred to a "second abstraction race," pursuing the 20th-century Cold War contention betwixt the United States and the Soviet Union.
"There is simply a tendency for america to instrumentality to the aboveground of the Moon and to beryllium the archetypal to instrumentality to the aboveground of the Moon," Hawkins said, earlier emphasizing that "NASA's objective" is "to bash truthful safely."
