NASA prepares for next year's Artemis flight

The Orion spacecraft photo of itself with the Moon in the distance. [NASA]

By Bethany Lee | 2025-05-27

If all goes as planned, NASA is less than a year away from the next manned flight to the Moon.

NASA's Exploration Ground Systems program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida is gearing up for Artemis II, the first lunar mission with astronauts since Apollo 17 in 1972.

Set to launch in April 2026, the mission will send four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the Moon to prepare for lunar exploration and future visits to Mars.

Preparations at Kennedy Space Center

The four Artemis II astronauts -- NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency's Jeremy Hansen -- will fly inside the Orion spacecraft on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which will be the first crewed flight of the Lockheed Martin-designed Orion and the second launch of SLS.

Teams with NASA's Exploration Ground Systems Program begin integrating the interim cryogenic propulsion stage to the Space Launch System (SLS) launch vehicle stage adapter on April 30, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The four-story propulsion system, built by Boeing and United Launch Alliance (ULA), is powered by an RL10 engine that will enable the Orion spacecraft to build up enough speed for the push toward the Moon during the Artemis II crewed test flight. [NASA/Isaac Watson]

While wearing clean room suits, the Artemis II crew members check out their Orion crew module inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on August 7, 2023. [NASA]

This spring, the Exploration Ground Systems team completed a few major milestones on the project, including the successful stacking of the SLS upper stage with the rest of the assembled rocket and the relocation of Orion from where it was built to where it will be fueled.

The interim cryogenic propulsion stage of the SLS rocket, which gives 25,000 extra pounds of boost to the spacecraft, was stacked on May 1, leaving only the Orion spacecraft and its components left to be attached.

Meanwhile, the Orion capsule moved from its assembly site to the Multi-Payload Processing Facility where it will be fueled with propellants, gases and other fluids before also being stacked on the SLS rocket.

Wiseman, Artemis II's commander, said in a social media post that the crew has finally been able to look inside the spacecraft where they'll be staying for the 10 days of the mission.

"It's looking beautiful. Smells like a new car," he said May 15 on Facebook.

Future Artemis missions

NASA has also continued preparations for the following Artemis mission, Artemis III, despite some doubts about future government support.

In contrast with Artemis II, in which astronauts will fly around the Moon but not land, mission III plans to touch down on the lunar surface for about a week while a crew conducts spacewalks and collects samples.

NASA had previously laid out plans for additional lunar landings, including one to build a lunar space station called Gateway, but the White House proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 no longer includes funding for Gateway or for missions on SLS and Orion.

The proposed budget has a long way to go before being finalized, but if passed the cuts would significantly change the course of Artemis missions.

For now, NASA is choosing to prioritize what is certain.

"We're extremely focused on preparing for Artemis II," Lakiesha Hawkins, assistant deputy associate administrator for NASA's Moon to Mars Program, said in a press release May 6. "The mission is nearly here."

While operations seem to be on track for a launch next spring, it is worth noting that "nearly here" historically means many different things for NASA, as Artemis II was originally planned to launch by 2023.

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