{"id":507525,"date":"2026-04-01T18:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/507525\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T18:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:27:13","slug":"artemis-astronauts-arrive-at-launch-pad-for-first-crewed-mission-around-moon-in-more-than-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/507525\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis: Astronauts arrive at launch pad for first crewed mission around Moon in more than 50 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Artemis II fits into Nasa\u2019s Moon planspublished at 16:32 BST<\/p>\n

16:32 BST<\/p>\n

\"\"Rebecca Morelle
Science editor, reporting from the launch site<\/p>\n

\"PeopleImage source, Reuters<\/p>\n

The
\nArtemis I mission took place in 2022, and saw Nasa\u2019s mega rocket – the Space
\nLaunch System (SLS) – and the Orion capsule fly for the first time on a 25-day
\nmission around the Moon.<\/p>\n

But
\nthere were no humans onboard.<\/p>\n

For
\nArtemis II, astronauts are very much at the front and centre of the mission.
\nThe crew will be the first people to fly in the SLS and Orion as they travel
\naround the Moon – their mission will last about 10 days.<\/p>\n

The
\nplans for Artemis III have recently been overhauled by Nasa. It was originally
\nsupposed to see astronauts land on the lunar surface, and was scheduled for
\n2028.<\/p>\n

Instead
\nthe crew will stay closer to home – and in 2027 they\u2019ll fly on Orion to
\nlow-Earth orbit, and test docking with a lunar lander. <\/p>\n

Artemis
\nIV and V will now become lunar landing missions – and Nasa says it\u2019s aiming for
\nboth to happen in 2028. But this is an ambitious timeline.<\/p>\n

Two
\ncompanies – Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos\u2019s Blue Origin – are building
\nlunar landers. But it\u2019s not clear which one will be used for the docking test
\nwith Artemis III, or which will be selected for the first lunar landing.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Nasa plans to build a lunar base. But plans to construct a space station
\ncalled Gateway to orbit around the Moon have been paused. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How Artemis II fits into Nasa\u2019s Moon planspublished at 16:32 BST 16:32 BST Rebecca MorelleScience editor, reporting from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-507525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}