NASA officials on Tuesday said the agency's first crewed flight in its Artemis programme - a trip around the moon and back - is on track for launch in April and could potentially be moved up to February 2026.
The space agency's Artemis programme is the flagship U.S. effort to return humans to the moon, a multibillion dollar series of missions that rivals a similar effort by China, which is aiming for a 2030 astronaut moon landing.
Artemis 2, a 10-day flight in which a crew of four astronauts will fly around the moon and back, is a precursor test to the agency's first astronaut moon landing since 1972.
That mission, Artemis 3, is a far more ambitious and complex endeavor currently planned for 2027 and involving a moon lander variant of SpaceX's Starship rocket.
Artemis 2 involves NASA's Space Launch System rocket, built by Boeing and Northrop Grumman, and its Orion capsule, built by Lockheed Martin. Last year, NASA delayed the mission by several months to April 2026.
"We intend to keep that commitment," Lakiesha Hawkins, an acting senior official in NASA's exploration unit, said during a news conference on Tuesday of the 2026 date.
She added that the readiness of NASA's and Orion spacecraft could potentially warrant an earlier launch date, but that safety considerations will ultimately guide when the mission launches.
The Orion capsule will ride atop the giant, 98 metres (322-foot-tall) SLS rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the first time the spacecraft duo will fly with humans.
Artemis 2 will fly astronauts Reid Wiseman, the mission's commander who last flew on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station in 2014; Victor Glover, the pilot who flew to space in 2020 on a SpaceX ISS mission; Christina Koch, a mission specialist who flew on a Soyuz ISS mission in 2019; and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, another mission specialist who will fly to space for the first time.
Hansen's inclusion will mark the first Canadian to fly in the vicinity of the moon.
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U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to end the war in Ukraine received support from the leaders of Britain, France, and Germany, who emphasized that any solution must fully involve Ukraine, following their Coalition of the Willing meeting on Tuesday.
Former President Jair Bolsonaro will begin a 27-year prison sentence for a coup plot against his successor, a decision made by Brazil's Supreme Court on Tuesday, marking the culmination of years of political turmoil and legal battles.
The U.S.-imposed Thursday deadline on Ukraine’s peace plan is no longer Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, adding that “the deadline for me is when it’s over.”
Galatasaray suffered a 1-0 defeat at home to Belgian side Union Saint-Gilloise in the fifth round of the UEFA Champions League.
The Hayli Gubbi volcano in north-eastern Ethiopia erupted on Sunday for the first time in over 12,000 years, before halting on Monday, according to the Toulouse Volcanic Ash Advisory Center.
U.S. President Donald Trump has told his advisers that he plans to speak directly with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro according to Axios, as Washington designated him as the head of a terrorist organisation on Monday. A claim Maduro denies.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has once again expressed strong support for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, condemning foreign interference and criticising U.S. actions in the region.
The United States is preparing to launch a new phase of Venezuela-related operations in the coming days, four U.S. officials told Reuters, as the Trump administration escalates pressure on President Nicolas Maduro.
Pakistan issued a strong rebuke after India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh suggested that Sindh, currently a province of Pakistan, could one day return to India. Singh framed the idea as part of a civilisational link, saying borders can change and past separations may not be permanent.
China's first emergency space launch entered orbit after blasting off on Tuesday, as the country looks to plug safety risks at its crewed space station after a vessel was damaged in orbit earlier this month.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a new federal programme to accelerate American artificial intelligence research and applications.
Audi has unveiled the car that marks its first major step into Formula One. It presented the 2026 challenger at a launch event in Munich attended by drivers, team leaders and senior company executives.
Billionaire Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has launched NASA’s twin ESCAPADE satellites to Mars on Sunday, marking the second flight of its New Glenn rocket, a mission seen as a crucial test of the company’s reusability ambitions and a fresh challenge to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
China has announced exemptions to its export controls on Nexperia chips intended for civilian use, the commerce ministry said on Sunday, a move aimed at easing supply shortages affecting carmakers and automotive suppliers.
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