New Date For Historic Flight To The Moon Announced
Credit: NASA
NASA scheduled the first human mission to the Moon for March 6. Yesterday, February 20, 2026, the Artemis II crew entered quarantine in Houston at approximately 5:00 PM Central Time. The crew consists of three NASA astronauts: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
The mission is the first manned flight to the Moon in 50 years. The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is scheduled to launch the Orion spacecraft with four crew members into lunar orbit. After orbiting the moon, the astronauts will return to Earth. This is preparation for the subsequent Artemis missions, which aim to land on the Moon.
The mission’s launch was initially scheduled for February 7, then February 11. However, a fuel leak was discovered during a training session on the launch pad. A repeat test on February 19 showed that the problem had been resolved.
The Artemis crew has already been placed under a soft quarantine, which will be tightened five days before launch. NASA management stated that they would have liked to launch the astronauts as soon as possible, for example, on March 3, but other dates were not feasible.
The flight will be the first time humans have traveled beyond low Earth orbit in more than 50 years—the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972.
