Moon, NASA and Artemis
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SLS and the Orion spacecraft are fully stacked together inside NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center. Once final tests are complete, the launch vehicle will be rolled out onto the pad at Launch Complex-39A, which should take about 10 hours.
NASA says it is continuing to prepare for a possible Artemis 2 launch as soon as February, but with remarkably little publicity for the historic mission.
Morning Overview on MSN
Artemis 2 could launch in 1 month, NASA nears a moon flyby milestone
NASA is entering the tightest stretch yet before its first crewed lunar voyage of the Artemis era, with Artemis 2 now poised to fly astronauts around the moon roughly one month from now if final tests hold.
NASA’s Artemis II moon mission highlights the Space Coast’s 2026 launch manifest, which also could see Blue Origin’s moon lander and the arrival of SpaceX’s Starship.
American space agency NASA conducted a full rehearsal of the launch day procedures for the Artemis II mission scheduled to depart in April 2026.