NASA is planning on rolling out the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to the launch pad on Jan. 17 for a launch as soon as Feb. 5, Space.com is reporting. NASA’s Crawler-Transporter 2 vehicle will carry the SLS-Orion stack from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center to Launch Pad 39B for the first manned lunar mission in more than 50 years.

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.

NASA’s Artemis II mission is rolling toward the launch pad, marking a major step toward humanity’s next journey around the Moon.

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.

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.

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,