The first crewed Artemis mission is now the focus of NASA’s beyond-Earth orbit human spaceflight programs. Mission training for the recently-named crew for the Artemis II test flight is expected to begin in June, at just about the time that the mission integration review will be conducted.
The space agency has been planning for the lunar flyby mission for years, back to its origins in the last decade when it was called Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2). The Exploration Ground Systems (EGS), Orion, and Space Launch System (SLS) programs are factoring in the data and their experiences from the Artemis I mission that was completed at the end of last year as preparations for the spacecraft, launch vehicle, and ground launch infrastructure continue toward a launch no earlier than the end of 2024.