The orbit of the moon by the Orion spacecraft with a crew of four is supposed to be the triumphant return of humans to the proximity of our natural cosmic companion. The SLS launch vehicle carrying Orion was transferred from the VAB assembly hall to launch pad 39B on Saturday, January 17, 2026. The start of the two-day tank-filling test countdown was scheduled for January 29, but due to overnight frost, it was postponed to January 31 after 20:00 local time. During the test, all tanks were refueled, albeit with a delay due to a leak of liquid hydrogen in the area of the quick coupling at the interface of the plate from the TSMU refueling stand on the mobile discharge platform and the plate on the outer wall of the engine section of the central stage. After refueling, the closure team entered the white room and tested closing the Orion entry hatch and the Orion outer cover hatch, which is part of the LAS system.
At nine minutes past midnight on February 3 local time, the launch director gave the go-ahead to move into the final phase of the countdown from T-10 minutes to the scheduled stop at T-33 seconds. During the countdown, the access arm with the white room was folded away from Orion, but a leak occurred again at the same point of interface between the plates as the liquid hydrogen was slowly replenished. At time T-5 minutes 15 seconds, the countdown was therefore stopped. The team began working to ensure a safe configuration of the SLS and to begin draining the tanks.
At a subsequent press conference on February 3, it was announced that it would be necessary to study the data obtained from the first test before determining next steps and setting a date for a new refueling countdown test. In the meantime, technicians will replace the seals on the quick couplers right on the ramp. However, if it turns out that the launch is not realistic before the end of the March launch period, then it will probably be necessary to return the entire assembly to the VAB hall, where there is an access platform allowing the exchange of the battery in the ICPS stage, which has a limited life.
NASA is now working on a plan to conduct a second refueling countdown test later in February. On February 8, it announced that two seals in the hydrogen leak area had been replaced. Because the countdown will begin at L-50 hours, NASA should announce the date at least three days before the simulated launch date. If the test is successful, NASA wants to try to launch the Artemis II mission in early March.
Amit Kshatriya also said at the said press conference that the Command and Service Modules for Artemis III are undergoing air-conditioning tests in the Kennedy Space Center’s O&C Building. A heat shield must still be attached to the command module.
This gives some comparison to the Orion timeline for Artemis II. IN last episode we wrote that in June it will be three years since the heat shield was attached to the crew module for Artemis II. However, there is a potential to gradually shorten the interval between the preparations of both ships.
But only if the mistakes that caused the slippage in Orion’s preparation for Artemis II are not repeated. We are talking about the main batteries in the crew module, which were not sufficiently mechanically resistant to vibrations and had to be rebuilt. The electronic elements of the ECLSS life support system were also replaced and reinstalled after a design flaw was discovered. A third factor in the delay was the process of determining the root cause of heat shield erosion upon return from the Artemis I mission.
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Production of the center stage for the SLS launch vehicle has passed several significant milestones in recent months at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. A front flange was attached to the oxygen tank on 5 December 2025 in Integration Cell D in Building 110. A fortnight later, the forward assembly of the center stage, consisting of the leading edge, oxygen tank and intertank, was removed from the cell and rotated to a horizontal position. On December 27, the assembly was moved to the final assembly area 47/48 in building 103 to the hydrogen tank. Connection and bolting with the hydrogen tank was done on January 8, 2026. This connected 4 of the 5 parts of the central stage.
This reduced the time gap from the same activity performed on the central stage for Artemis II to 3 years and 10 months. The gap should further decrease. The next big step will be the connection with the engine section. The engine section was attached and bolted to the center stage for Artemis II after 12 months from the 4/5 stage connection, but for Artemis I after 4 months.
Bonding for Artemis III will take place in the vertical integration cell in the VAB building at Kennedy Space Center. Amit Kshatriya said at the aforementioned press conference on February 3 that the central stage for Artemis III will be delivered to Cape Canaveral in a few months. He also said that no specific hardware components are expected for Artemis III. This means that production runs smoothly.
There will still be a lot of work to complete the central stage, connecting pipes, cables, connecting RS-25 motors, performing functional checks and tests. However, NASA expects that doing this work in the vertical cell will be faster than in Michoud thanks to the 360-degree approach. To give an idea, the central stage for Artemis I was completed less than 4 months after the engine section was attached. For the central stage for Artemis II, it took 16 months. It is clear that the central stage for Artemis III has the potential to further significantly reduce the distance from the completion of the Artemis II stage. Thus, the current state of central stage production still supports the launch readiness of the Artemis III mission in 2028.
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Another indication of whether NASA believes in the possibility of reducing the time gap to less than three years will be the transport of the fuel segments of the SRB take-off stages to the Kennedy Space Center. The rail set with SRB segments for Artemis II arrived at the spaceport in September 2023.
NASA’s stated mission and priority is to return Americans to the Moon by the end of 2028. The degree of credibility of the success of the calendar race and the timelines of SLS and Orion preparations for the Artemis III mission are highly dependent on the results of the Artemis II mission. Equally important is the success of the unmanned lunar landers, which, according to accelerated plans, are supposed to land on the moon within thirteen months at the latest.
Previous NASA interim administrator Sean Duffy’s decision to open up the Artemis III lunar lander contract to rival Blue Origin is paying off. New Administrator Jared Isaacman confirmed the race to supply the lunar lander for Artemis III between SpaceX and Blue Origin, saying the agency will choose the contractor to complete the lunar lander first. The creation of a competitive environment allowed NASA to put more effective pressure on both companies to prepare simplified acceleration plans for the Artemis III manned lunar landing by the end of 2028.
According to the Wall Street Journal SpaceX has told investors it will prioritize going to the moon for NASA over attempting its own unmanned mission to Mars. SpaceX is now internally planning an unmanned lunar landing of the Starship for March 2027. This marks a three-month advance from the previous internal plan from last November. Credibility of the new plan hinges on a refueling test between two Starships in Earth orbit, expected in mid-2026.
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Eric Berger of arstechnica.com on February 6 confirmedthat he continues to hear that Blue Origin is internally aggressively moving toward an interim solution to landing on the moon within Artemis that does not require refueling in space. Berger calls this solution Blue Moon MK 1.5.
Blue Origin’s first manufactured lunar lander is the Blue Moon MK1 cargo vehicle, serial number SN001. The lander is to test key systems that will also be used in the lander for Artemis. These include, for example, the BE-7 engine, cryogenic liquid propulsion systems, avionics, communication systems and the ability to land with an accuracy of 100 meters.
Lander SN001 received the name Endurance (Endurance) after Ernest Shackleton’s ship from the Antarctic expedition of 1914 to 1916. On January 20, 2026, the completed lander was loaded at Port Canaveral onto a naval ship, which took it to the Johnson Center in Houston for thermal vacuum tests in Vacuum Chamber A. The lander arrived in Houston on February 2. In the chamber, it will be exposed to temperatures from -50°C to +30°C in conditions of almost perfect vacuum.
After returning to Cape Canaveral, Blue Origin intends to take the lander to the moon on a New Glenn launch vehicle this year. The goal of the Pathfinder MK1-SN001 cargo mission is to land on the South Pole of the Moon near Shackleton Crater.
Blue Origin is trying to win the prestigious lander contract for Artemis III. Therefore, on January 30, the company announced that it would suspend the flights of its New Shepard suborbital rocket for at least two years and transfer the freed human and material resources to an accelerated program of a manned lunar lander. “We have an extraordinary opportunity to be part of our country’s goal of returning to the moon,” company CEO Dave Limp wrote in an internal email.
In addition to NASA’s calendar race to return Americans to the moon in the current presidential term and the two space companies’ race to deliver a lunar lander, we are also witnessing the US race with China.
News from Wenchang Cosmodrome
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In our last piece, there was a photo of the launch pad in Complex 301 of the Wenchang Cosmodrome, intended for launches of CZ-10A and CZ-10 launch vehicles. In a photo taken on December 16, the last three of the four lightning conductors near the ramp were in the installation phase, and a tall assembly crane had been removed from the structurally completed service tower.
In the last part, we also wrote about the upcoming escape test of the Mengzhou ship during the flight of the launch vehicle at the maximum dynamic pressure Max Q. At that time, it was already evident that the test would be carried out at the Wenchang Cosmodrome, but it was still not known what launch vehicle would be used for the test. One of the candidates discussed was a shortened test prototype of the first stage of the CZ-10A missile, which performed ignition tests on ramp 301 in August and September 2025 and was taken away after their completion.
On January 15, 2026, five days after the publication of the January part of our series, the first stage of the CZ-10A rocket was placed on the mobile launch platform. Upon closer examination, it became clear that it was a reworked shortened test prototype, known from last year. The prototype was extended to full length, apparently by a mock-up of its upper part. The Mengzhou ship was placed on top. Maintenance teams can access the ship from the mobile launch platform tower via a newly installed access arm. The flight test is expected for tomorrow, February 11.
The test will simulate the case of a launch vehicle failure in flight and verify the trajectory and controllability of the Mengzhou ship. This is a key step in the plan to land Chinese astronauts on the moon by 2030.
An unmanned flight of the Mengzhou ship to the Chinese Space Station CSS is being prepared for the end of this year. The launch vehicle is to be the CZ-10A.
The first flight of the CZ-10 rocket with two side stages should follow in 2027. It is expected that the flight schedule of CZ-10 missiles could include:
2027 unmanned landing of the Lanyue lander on the moon
2028 unmanned flight of the Mengzhou ship to the moon
2028 manned flight of the Mengzhou craft into lunar orbit
2029 flight of the Lanyue lander into lunar orbit, where it will wait for Mengzhou
2029 Manned flight of Mengzhou ship, rendezvous with Lanyue lander and landing of two astronauts on the surface of the moon
Sources of information:
https://www.nasa.gov/
https://images.nasa.gov/
https://images.nasa.gov/
https://images.nasa.gov/
https://x.com/
Image Sources:
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date:2026-02-11 08:28:00
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