The next astronauts headed to the moon are preparing for all contingencies as their mission approaches, and they recently completed a nighttime rehearsal of launch procedures.

NASA's Artemis 2 mission — the first-ever crewed mission of the Orion capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) — is targeting a liftoff between February and April of 2026. Aboard Orion will be NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

The quartet will fly Orion on a journey around the moon, looping around the natural satellite and slingshotting back to Earth on a "free-return" trajectory. The Artemis 2 crew practiced nighttime launch protocols during a recent dress rehearsal at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, during which they

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