Artemis 3 is the third planned flight of NASA’s Orion spacecraft of the Space Launch System. The space agency very recently announced that it would launch Artemis 1 in February 2022 to the moon, but this mission will be unmanned. The agency also announced that it will eventually launch Artemis 3 sometime in 2024.
However, Artemis 3 will carry astronauts to the surface of the moon. If the Artemis 3 mission becomes a success, it will be the first crewed lunar landing since the historic landing of Apollo 17 back in 1972. Artemis 2 is scheduled to launch sometime in 2023. Although NASA has already revealed the timeline for the manned mission launch to the moon, the details about the mission are obviously too early to disclose.
A few sources have claimed that NASA had planned to conduct a test flight of the Artemis spacecraft before the end of 2021 and that the manned Artemis 3 mission will finally be carried out in 2024. But NASA recently also announced that the unmanned mission, which was supposed to take place in late 2021, has been postponed to February 2022, followed by the launch of Artemis 2 the next year, and finally, the launch of the manned Artemis 3.
As of now, NASA has integrated the next-generation giant launch vehicle “Space Launch System,” or commonly known as SLS in the hangar of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US. The SLS is burdened with the responsibility of transporting the spacecraft to space.
On the other hand, NASA had previously mentioned that the agency is trying to work towards finding a permanent base on the moon that would be used as a springboard for a trip to Mars in the 2030s.
NASA has also called for a media teleconference at 3 pm EST on November 9 so that the agency could provide an update on their exploration plans under Artemis.
