NASA redirects Artemis moon mission program, postponing a planned astronaut landing

The mobile launcher containing the Artemis II Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft arrives at the Vehicle Assembly Building after a rollback that lasted over ten hours at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on February 25, 2026. NASA teams detected issues with the helium flow and removed the rocket from the launchpad.

In shaking up its Artemis lunar program, NASA's new moon plan looks more like the Apollo missions of the 1960s. Instead of landing on the surface on Artemis III, NASA hopes to do so on Artemis IV.

(Image credit: Gregg Newton)