The earliest possible launch date for the Artemis II rocket to carry Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen around the moon is scheduled for Feb. 8.<\/p>\n
NASA said cold weather and winds that blew through Florida and the Kennedy Space Center in the last several days led to the adjusted timeline.<\/p>\n
They said the adjustment will position the space agency for success, as the weather was expected to \u201cviolate launch conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Monday, crews will conduct a simulated launch, known as a wet dress rehearsal, to make sure they are prepared for launch day.<\/p>\n
Hansen, who hails from London, Ont., will serve as mission specialist during Artemis II, becoming the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit, marking a historic achievement for Canada.<\/p>\n
Artemis II will be the first crewed mission to the moon since 1972 \u2014 the year of the final Apollo mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile NASA will wait to set a launch date until teams have reviewed the outcome of the wet dress rehearsal, Friday, Feb. 6, and Saturday, Feb. 7, are no longer viable opportunities,\u201d NASA said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny additional delays would result in a day for day change.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the roughly 10-day mission, the craft is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 1, 2026.<\/p>\n
Aaron Sousa, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The earliest possible launch date for the Artemis II rocket to carry Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen around the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-448253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}