Azernews.Az

By Alimat Aliyeva

NASA has announced significant changes to the Artemis program, now targeting April 1 as the earliest possible launch date for Artemis II. The space agency is pushing back the timeline for the first moon landing and rethinking hardware for its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on future missions, AzerNEWS reports, citing foreign media.

NASA added a new mission in 2027 and shifted Artemis III from a moon-landing mission to a low-Earth-orbit demonstration flight, moving the first lunar landing to Artemis IV in early 2028. The agency plans to conduct "at least one surface landing every year thereafter," signaling a steady cadence of lunar exploration.

Following the Artemis II Flight Readiness Review on March 12, program leaders confirmed the rocket will roll back out to the launch pad on March 19, with the earliest launch time set for 6:24 p.m. ET on April 1. Backup windows now stretch from April 1–6 and April 30, according to Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.

Shawn Quinn, exploration ground systems manager, reported that the most recent wet dress rehearsal was largely successful but required a rollback due to a helium flow issue. Investigators traced the problem to a quick-disconnect part where a seal blocked helium from reaching the cryogenic propulsion stage. NASA has since replicated, fixed, and cleared the system for Artemis II.

NASA is also standardizing SLS configurations for Artemis IV and beyond. The interim cryogenic propulsion stage used for the first three missions will be replaced by a new second stage, eliminating the need for Mobile Launcher 2 and the Exploration Upper Stage. According to contracts from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, the new upper stage will utilize United Launch Alliance's Centaur V.

With Artemis II, astronauts will orbit the Moon and test systems for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972—a gap of over 50 years. Future Artemis missions could even pave the way for sustainable lunar bases, turning the Moon into humanity’s stepping stone for deeper space exploration.