At Cape Canaveral, anticipation is mounting and preparations are underway for the launch of the Artemis 2 mission, which will take four astronauts to the Moon for the first manned lunar mission in 50 years.
The team is inclusive. Among the three NASA astronauts are Christina Koch, the first woman to orbit the Moon; Victor Glover, the first African-American astronaut to make the journey; and Commander Reid Wiseman. The crew is completed by Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who will be the first Canadian to travel around the Moon.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/wv9aylu5Cfw?si=xPtpKd4IZfVAEeWo
Imminent takeoff
The mission could take off as early as February 6, 2026, and no later than April. The rocket will not land on the Moon, but will orbit it for ten days to test systems and equipment for future, more permanent exploration missions. In 2022, the Artemis 1 mission sent an unmanned capsule to prepare for this mission.
In the coming years, NASA aims to launch a series of crewed missions to establish a station for a continuous human presence on the Moon at the South Pole. This is where scientists believe there are large reserves of frozen water. This could be extracted and processed, and used as drinking water, as a source of hydrogen and oxygen for breathing, but also as fuel for rockets.
Trump has given the American space agency a clear goal: to have a successful moon landing before the end of his second term in 2028.
Final preparations
In the second half of January, the enormous 322-foot (98 m) tall rocket named Space Launch System (SLS) will be slowly transported four miles (6.4 km) to launch pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. It is the result of an industrial consortium (including Boeing) and will be topped by the Orion capsule in which the astronauts will live, itself built by Lockheed Martin.
Let’s hope the show will be visible from all the beaches on Florida’s east coast.
Another major project for 2026: Starship’s in-orbit refueling demonstration
This demonstration is essential for SpaceX’s Starship rocket to enable it to travel beyond low Earth orbit. It is necessary before it can fulfill its contract with NASA for lunar and Mars missions. It will involve two simultaneous rocket launches from Texas or Florida. One will attempt to transfer ultra-cold propellants, methane, and liquid oxygen to the other. Cryogenic refueling on this scale has never been attempted in space before.
Blue Origin’s big project for 2026
SpaceX’s competitor, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, has ambitious plans: it intends to place its Blue Moon Mark 1 lunar lander (unmanned) on one of its New Glenn rockets and make its first landing on the Moon. At 26 feet (eight meters) high and 10 feet (three meters) in diameter, it will be the largest spacecraft ever to land on the Moon, if successful.
China in the race to the Moon
The goal is clear: China wants to send a crew to the Moon before 2030. Next step: the Mengzhou spacecraft test flight is scheduled to take place in 2026. Partially reusable, it is designed to carry up to seven people to the Chinese Tiangong space station, or a smaller crew on trips to the Moon. It will eventually replace the Shenzhou manned capsule, which is suitable for low Earth orbit missions. Another crucial milestone in 2026 will be the Chang’e 7 robotic mission, which will land in the South Pole region of the Moon, near the Shackleton crater, where ice is believed to exist. If successful, the Chang’e 7 mission will be the first to locate and characterize ice deposits on the Moon’s surface, beating similar US missions by a year or more.
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope
The new telescope, named Nancy Grace Roman in honor of NASA’s first female chief astronomer, will be 100 times larger than Hubble and will cover 50 times more surface area in five years than Hubble has in thirty years. Roman’s assembly was completed in December 2025, paving the way for a series of environmental tests before its launch, scheduled for September 2026 at the earliest aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
European Platon Mission
The European Space Agency’s next medium-class science mission, named after the Greek philosopher Plato, could become the most prolific planet hunter ever sent into space. Plato will search for exoplanets by detecting tiny dips in brightness when planets pass in front of other stars. It is specifically designed to find Sun-Earth analogues, i.e., potentially habitable rocky planets around stars similar to the Sun.
The Japanese on their way to Mars
The Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission will attempt to land up to twice on Phobos, one of Mars’ moons, and collect samples for a return to Earth scheduled for 2031.
Update on the Amazon satellite project
The former Kuiper project, renamed Amazon Leo in November 2025, a competitor to Starlink satellites, has already enabled the American firm to launch more than 180 satellites as of December 2025, in seven different launches throughout 2025. The goal is to begin providing fast and reliable internet service in five countries (including the United States, but the others have not yet been confirmed) in the first quarter of 2026. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) had required Amazon to have 50% of the constellation in orbit by July 2026 (i.e., 1,618 satellites), but may grant additional time, as this seems impossible to achieve given the scale of the project.
