The deputation to return humans to the Moon is moving on to its next phase , NASA has herald . While describe the current analysis of the successful uncrewed Artemis I mission , the agency reveal when the first crewed mission will take place .

Artemis Iwasthe first test trajectory for NASA ’s megarocket Space Launch System ( SLS ) and Orion spacecraftand spent 25.5 days in space . Artemis II will be the first crewed flight to the Moon before Artemis III actually lands on the lunar aerofoil .

NASA revealed that as the Orion capsule successfully outlast Earth reentry without burning up , the next launch is now expect for November 2024 . Thefour - astronaut crew , let in one Canadian , will be announced later this twelvemonth .

" We ’re front forward to that crew fly on Artemis II , " Jim Free , NASA associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate , said during thepress conferenceTuesday . " Right now there ’s nothing holding us up base on what we learned on Artemis I. "

Despite the manydelays , the SLS rocket – the most powerful rocket ever to launch – outperformed many expectations while the Orion ballistic capsule completed more than 161 test objectives , 20 of them sum during the flight because it was all going so well . The European - built service module generated 20 percentage more powerfulness and used 25 percent less energy than predicted .

As it originate the preparation for Artemis II , NASA is still conk out through all the data from the first maraud .

“ We ’re learn as much as we possibly can from Artemis I to ensure we fully understand every aspect of our systems and feed in those lessons learn into how we plan for and fly crew missions , ” explained Free in astatement .   “ Safely flying work party is our top priority for Artemis II . ”

take for granted the succeeder of Artemis II , Artemis III will see human beings land at the Moon ’s South Pole potentially inNovember 2025 .

" Our design has always been 12 calendar month [ between delegacy ] , but there are substantial developments that have to occur , " Free cautioned . " We ’re still sticking with that 12 month , but we ’re always looking at the development of all the hardware that has to come together for that . "