The Washington Monument lit up on New Year's Eve in celebration of the Artemis 2 moon mission as well as the 250th anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence.

Four astronauts are about to become the first humans to venture near the moon in more than half a century since NASA's iconic Apollo era ended.

NASA could be sending a crew on the Orion spacecraft out past the moon in less than a month if everything falls into place. But first the agency has to get its rocket to the launch pad.

NASA announced that the earliest launch window for Artemis II is Feb. 6, 2026, with 12 more possible dates available from February-April. The Artemis mission, a followup to the Apollo program, hopes to have astronauts back on the moon’s surface by 2027.

NASA is entering the tightest stretch yet before its first crewed lunar voyage of the Artemis era, with Artemis 2 now poised to fly astronauts around the moon roughly one month from now if final tests hold.

Xu Wang, senior researcher at the lab and a CU Boulder physics lecturer, is leading the DUSTER proposal. He said in the lab’s December statement on the funding that the project will help NASA better grasp how the dust and plasma environment works at the Lunar South Pole, where the Artemis missions will land.

The Artemis II mission, which could launch as early as February, is expected to send four astronauts on a trip to the moon, though they won't land on its surface.

For the first time in more than half a century, humans are preparing to leave Earth’s orbit and head near the moon, with NASA’s Artemis 2 mission set to launch in 2026. Decades after the last Apollo astronauts gazed back at our celestial neighbor,