{"id":35420,"date":"2025-09-24T16:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/35420\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T16:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:26:08","slug":"nasa-confirms-first-crewed-mission-to-orbit-the-moon-in-50-years-set-for-2026-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/35420\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Confirms First Crewed Mission to Orbit The Moon in 50+ Years Set For 2026 : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA on Tuesday said it was on track to send astronauts to orbit the Moon<\/a> in early 2026, as the United States races China to return to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

Multiple setbacks have delayed the manned mission, dubbed Artemis 2, which is now scheduled for April 2026 at the latest and could come as soon as February.<\/p>\n

“We intend to keep that commitment,” said<\/a> Lakiesha Hawkins, a top NASA official, at a press briefing Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Related: Our Moon Is Drifting Away. Here’s What We Can Expect to Happen.<\/a><\/p>\n

Three US astronauts and one Canadian comprise the crew, which is expected to be the first to orbit the Moon<\/a> in more than half a century.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube frameborder=”0\u2033 allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen><\/p>\n

But the mission will not land there \u2013 achieving that goal is the aim of Artemis 3.<\/p>\n

The US space agency’s Artemis program<\/a> hopes to return humans to the Moon as China forges ahead with a rival effort that is targeting 2030 at the latest for its first crewed mission.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube frameborder=”0\u2033 allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen><\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress.<\/p>\n

The Republican leader, who announced the Artemis program during his first term, wants the US space agency to return to the Moon<\/a> as soon as possible and also voyage to Mars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both efforts plan to eventually establish bases on the Moon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"AThe Artemis I SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in March 2022.
(NASA\/Frank Michaux<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has referred to a “second space race,” following the 20th-century Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

“There is a desire for us to return to the surface of the Moon and to be the first to return to the surface of the Moon,” Hawkins said, before emphasizing that “NASA’s objective” is “to do so safely.”<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA on Tuesday said it was on track to send astronauts to orbit the Moon in early 2026,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-35420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}