The SLS rocket and Orion capsule seen in the distance at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Friday, February 20, 2026. Credit: Gregg Newton/AFP/Profimedia
NASA officials announced Friday that the agency is targeting March 6 as the date to launch four astronauts around the moon and back as part of the Artemis II mission, after overcoming problems with the rocket's fuel supply in a key second exercise this week. They warned, however, that the preparatory work that remains to be done could take more time, according to Reuters.
As part of the Artemis II mission, four astronauts will embark on a 10-day journey around the Moon, but without an actual moon landing. The crew consists of Canadian Jeremy Hansen and Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch.
If the mission comes to fruition, it will be the first human crew to fly around the moon in more than 50 years and will also be the farthest human space travel in history, according to the BBC.
On Thursday night, the US space agency ended a nearly 50-hour exercise without encountering the hydrogen leaks that marked last month's exercise, NASA officials said at a news conference on Friday.
A 10 day mission
The crew will begin their journey aboard the 98-meter-tall Space Launch System mega-rocket. SLS flew just once more, in November 2022, as part of the Artemis I mission, but that time it was without humans on board.
The crew will sit in the Orion capsule, which sits atop the rocket.
The interior of the spacecraft is about the size of a minibus and is where the four will live, eat, work and sleep during the 10-day mission.
On the first day, the journey will take place in Earth orbit, and if all goes according to plan the astronauts will head for the Moon.
The crew will be the furthest from Earth of any space mission, as they will be more than 6,000 km from the far side of the Moon.
However, some experts claim that NASA is putting the lives of the Orion crew at risk because of the heat shield. “NASA is on the verge of sending people to the moon in a capsule that not everyone thinks is safe for flight,” CNN wrote.
Mission Artemis II. Is NASA taking too much of a risk? A well-known physicist explains what the heat shield is and how it works, which must withstand 2,700 degrees
