NASA delays Artemis mission to moon due to cold weather
NASA has delayed the astronauts’ next trip to the Moon due to expected near-freezing temperatures at the launch site.
The first Artemis Moonshot with a crew is now scheduled for February 8 at the earliest, two days later than planned.
NASA was set to conduct a refueling test of the 322-foot moon rocket on Saturday, but canceled everything Thursday evening due to expected cold weather.
The critical dress rehearsal is now set for Monday, weather permitting. The change leaves NASA with just three days in February to send four astronauts around the Moon and back, before moving on to March.
“Any further delays would result in a day-to-day change,” NASA said in a statement Friday.
Radiators keep the Orion capsule warm at the top of the rocket, officials said, and the rocket’s purge systems are also adapted for the cold.
Commander Reid Wiseman and his crew remain in quarantine in Houston and their arrival at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is uncertain.
This photo provided by NASA shows the Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Orion spacecraft atop a mobile launch vehicle at Launch Complex 39B, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. / Credit: Jim Ross / AP
(Jim Ross/AP)
Lisa Voiles, training director, told CBS News as his team writes down countless ways something could go wrong at any phase of the mission.
Scenarios vary, but Voiles told “CBS Mornings” it could be anything from the smallest sensor failure to a fire or other emergency. “She observes how the crew reacts to each problem inside the capsule.
Judd Frieling, one of NASA’s flight directors who supported more than 20 shuttle missions, will sit in the hot seat to oversee the Artemis II crew’s ascent to space.
Frieling said some of the scenarios given to astronauts and flight controllers during training were “very creative” – and absolutely necessary.
“If you don’t have a completely defined plan, you at least have an idea of what the plan might be,” he told “CBS Mornings.”
NASA only has a few days a month to launch its first lunar crew in more than half a century. Apollo 17 closed this famous Moon exploration program in 1972.
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