US EditionNASA Artemis II Launch Date Pushed Back After Unexpected 'Rare Outbreak'
NASA postponed the Artemis II wet dress rehearsal due to a rare arctic outbreak in Florida, delaying the earliest crewed launch to Feb. 8 from earlier planned dates.
- NASA announced on Friday that the Artemis II wet dress rehearsal is moved to February 2, making the earliest launch opportunity no earlier than February 8, 2026, with no set launch date as of January 30, 2026.
- A rare arctic outbreak brought freezing temperatures and high winds to Kennedy Space Center, Florida, prompting NASA engineers and launch managers to assess hardware against safety protocols.
- Technical teams say the wet dress rehearsal simulates launch-day procedures by loading more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellant while heaters and purges protect the Orion spacecraft and SLS 98-metre rocket.
- NASA has ruled out February 6 and February 7, 2026, launch windows, compressing February scheduling to three days while the four astronauts remain in quarantine in Houston under the 14-day health stabilisation programme.
- Artemis II will last roughly 10 days and send humans farther than Apollo 17, testing Orion spacecraft life-support systems and medical experiments on radiation exposure while paving the way for Artemis III human lunar landing.
53 Articles
53 Articles
NASA has postponed a mission around the Moon due to cold weather.
The US space agency NASA has postponed the launch of a crewed Artemis II rocket to orbit the moon on Friday due to cold weather in Florida. The ground test is now scheduled for Monday instead of this weekend, and the long-awaited crewed launch to the moon will not take place until February 8, US media reports.
London astronaut Jeremy Hansen will have to wait a bit longer for his lunar journey
Slated to be aboard the first Artemis moonshot for NASA, it’s departure - initially scheduled for February 6 - has been delayed for at least two days because of near-freezing temperatures expected at the launch site.
RETURN TO THE MOON: Artemis II Historic Crewed Lunar Mission Delayed 48 Hours Due to Extreme Cold, Set to Take Off on February 8
Artemis II Crew Announcement at NRG Stadium – Photo: Riley McClenaghan/Wiki Commons The return of US astronauts to the moon orbit is easily the most overlooked contemporary event. Ever since 1972, no human being has been to the moon surface or its orbit. But now, the Donald J. Trump administration is gearing up for a historic return. The Artemis II will take American astronauts back to the moon, and a first mission, to orbit our satellite, will …
Traveling to the surroundings of Lua, which has not happened more than 50 years ago, had to be added because of a cold wave in the United States, which prevented the SLS fuguetto test. There is no new date yet.
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