NASA officials said on Friday (January 16) that Artemis II, the first crewed mission to the moon since the Apollo era more than five decades ago, is moving closer to flight as the agency prepares to roll out its rocket and spacecraft.

At a press conference in Cape Canaveral, Artemis II mission management team chair John Honeycutt said the mission will take astronauts farther from Earth than ever before, validating spacecraft, life support, navigation and crew systems in deep space.

“Taking the crew around the moon, this is going to be our first step toward a sustained lunar presence on the moon,” he said.

Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said the fully stacked Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft are scheduled to begin rolling out early Saturday. “First motion is planned for 7 a.m.,” she said.

Artemis II lead flight director Jeff Radigan said the roughly 10-day mission will include extensive system checkouts during the three-day journey to the moon, followed by a flyby of the lunar far side, where the crew will conduct observations and capture video.

Chief exploration scientist Jacob Bleacher said Artemis II is a test flight that will include a wide-ranging research campaign to study how both spacecraft systems and humans perform in deep space. “Artemis II science is the science of humankind,” he said.

The Artemis II mission unfolds as President Donald Trump has reaffirmed the U.S. goal of returning humans to the moon by 2028 and outlined broader plans to strengthen U.S. space security, keeping the moon at the center of American space policy despite years of development delays.

-Jose Pablo Diaz/Reuters