According to reports by U.S. media, Sean Duffy, the acting administrator of NASA, announced on October 21, 2025, that the NASA crewed spacecraft "Orion" used in the first crewed mission of the U.S.-led lunar exploration program "Artemis," named "Artemis II," has been installed on the rocket.
Acting Administrator Duffy posted on social media platform X, accompanied by a picture showing the Orion spacecraft being captured and combined with the adapter of the large rocket "SLS (Space Launch System)." The Artemis program is an initiative aimed at continuous lunar exploration activities and future crewed Mars exploration. For the United States, it plans to conduct crewed lunar exploration since the Apollo program in the 1960s~70s, and to explore ice (water ice) believed to be buried in the permanent shadows of the lunar south pole. In November~December 2022, the unmanned flight test of the Orion spacecraft, the "Artemis I" mission, was conducted and successfully completed.
The upcoming Artemis II will be a crewed flight test mission of the Orion spacecraft. Although no one will land on the moon, the Orion spacecraft carrying a crew will be the first crewed spacecraft to orbit the moon in about half a century since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. The crew consists of four people: NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman as commander, NASA astronaut Victor Glover as pilot, NASA astronaut Christina Hamer Koch (Christina Koch) (astronaut) as mission specialist, and NASA astronaut Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The Artemis II mission is expected to last approximately 10 days.
The launch is planned to take place earliest on February 5, 2026, and latest by April 2026 (as of September 2025). In the United States, as of the time this article was written, due to the expiration of the government budget, federal agencies have started partial closures since October 1, 2025, and have lasted for three weeks. It has been reported that NASA also went on furlough, except for some employees involved in the operation of the International Space Station and other parts of the business, and also suspended information dissemination to the public through spokespeople. Since early October, the acting administrator's posts on X have focused on content related to the Artemis program. This notice about the Orion spacecraft's SLS installation work indicates that the preparations for the Artemis II mission, which is scheduled to be launched in about three and a half months, are progressing steadily despite the halt in NASA's public relations activities.
Original source: www.toutiao.com/article/1846818258507788/
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