NASA has announced its schedule for the second stage of the Artemis missions, returning humans to the Moon, and it's earlier than expected. In a press conference yesterday, NASA officials gave an update on Artemis II,

Nasa’s plan to return humans to the Moon could be set back by years due to delays with SpaceX’s Starship rocket, industry experts have warned. Safety advisers for the US space agency said that fundamental challenges remain with Starship’s Human Landing System (HLS), which is expected to support the Artemis 3 mission in 2027.

IMAP (short for "Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe") is the primary payload on today's flight. The roughly $600 million spacecraft carries 10 different science instruments, which it will use to monitor solar activity as well as study interstellar dust and the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing continuously from our sun.

NASA is set to launch three spacecrafts Tuesday with the goal of unlocking the mysteries of solar weather at the edge of our solar system.

Members of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel believe the Human Landing System version of Starship won’t be ready for Artemis 3’s launch in 2027.

The three spacecraft will be forecasting solar storms, mapping our solar neighborhood and observing the outer layer of Earth’s atmosphere.