(AFP via Getty Images)
Nasa will go back to the Moon on 6 March, it has said.
It will target the day for the launch of its Artemis mission, when it hopes to send humans around the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
The journey will see four astronauts sent on a 10-day journey which will take them around the far side of the Moon and then back down to the Earth.
Nasa hopes it will the first of a series of missions that will one day see humans land back on the Moon – itself preparation for a future lunar base that could one day be used for missions to Mars.
It will be the first time that anyone has been to the Moon since the last Apollo mission, in 1972.
Nasa made the announcement after it completed a successful “wet dress rehearsal”, where it fills the spacecraft with fuel and goes through its countdown as if it is to take off.
The launch had initially been planned for February, but a previous attempt at that wet dress rehearsal had revealed a leak, and meant that engineers had to return to the rocket to replace important seals.
This time around, engineers “closely monitored liquid hydrogen fueling operations, which proved challenging during previous tests”, it said. That showed that the amount of gas “remained under allowable limits”, leading teams to believe the rocket was safe.
The wet dress rehearsal also saw a “loss of ground communications”, but Nasa was able to switch to a backup until normal methods were restored, it said. Engineers were able to find the equipment that had led to the problem.
The Artemis II crew – (L-R) pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of CSA (Canadian Space Agency), commander Reid Wiseman and mission specialist Christina Koch – rehearse a walkout from the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on December 20, 2025 in Cape Canaveral, Florida (Getty Images)
The four astronauts – Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch as well as a colleague from the Canadian Space Agency, Jeremy Hansen – will today enter quarantine in Houston, ahead of the launch. That helps them limit their exposure to possible illnesses before they set off.
Nasa’s Artemis 2 Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft that the astronauts will sit in will now stay at the launchpad, as engineers work on final preparation before that launch.