NASA Moon Mission Pushed to March

A hydrogen fuel leak was detected involving one of the umbilicals feeding the rocket’s core stage.

NASA’s Orion crew capsule sits atop the Space Launch System moon rocket ahead of the Artemis II mission on Launch Complex 39-B at Kennedy Space Center in florida on Feb. 1, 2026. T.J. Muscaro/The Epoch Times

Humanity’s return to lunar space will miss its February launch window. The more than 50-year wait will extend at least one more month.

NASA announced in the early hours of Feb. 3 that its Artemis II mission—set to carry American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen around the moon and back—would forego its upcoming launch window and aim for March.