Axiom received a nearly $230 million task order to develop the AxEMU suit, which Artemis astronauts will test out on the lunar surface. The task order is part of a contract with NASA worth up to $3.5 billion that also includes Collins Aerospace, which earlier this year abandoned efforts to develop extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits under its own $100 million task order.

NASA’s current EVA suits are more than four decades old, and recent malfunctions have forced the space agency to postpone several spacewalks.

“We have broken the mold,” said Matt Ondler, president of Axiom Space. “The Axiom Space-Prada partnership has set a new foundational model for cross-industry collaboration, further expanding what’s possible in commercial space.”

Artemis III will land a crew at the lunar south pole, so Axiom’s suit is designed to withstand extreme temperatures in regions devoid of sunlight. Its portable life support system will keep astronauts safe on spacewalks for up to eight hours, the company says.

Axiom says its design is more flexible, efficient, and safe than NASA’s existing suits. The AxEMU boots, for example, are built to withstand rough terrain and the freezing cold, while the helmet and visor covering are designed to improve astronauts’ vision of their surroundings. The suit can accommodate crew of nearly all body types.

Several AxEMU systems are redundant, including an onboard diagnostic system that tracks the wearer’s vital signs. Astronauts can control its temperature using a carbon dioxide scrubber and cooling system. A 4G/LTE communications system allows them to keep in touch with the rest of the crew during excursions.

The outer suit material, which was designed in partnership with Prada, will reflect heat and protect against small projectiles like dust.

“I’m very proud of the result we’re showing today, which is just the first step in a long-term collaboration with Axiom Space,” said Lorenzo Bertelli, chief marketing officer and head of corporate social responsibility for Prada Group. “We’ve shared our expertise on high-performance materials, features, and sewing techniques, and we learned a lot.”

According to Axiom, the suit will be designed for missions on the moon as well as in low-Earth orbit. That could be enticing for non-NASA customers that have different missions in mind.

The firm on Wednesday said the AxEMU suit is close to the final stage of development, with a critical design review expected next year. Already, it has endured underwater, reduced gravity, and pressurized simulation testing at NASA facilities. In the coming months, the space agency will perform crewed underwater testing at its Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory and gauge the suit’s fit with the prototype lunar rover the Artemis astronauts will drive.

Simultaneously, Axiom is developing the Axiom Station: one of several commercial space outposts that could replace the International Space Station (ISS) when NASA destroys it at the end of the decade. The firm has already completed three NASA-approved private astronaut missions to the ISS and is scheduled for a fourth in Spring 2025.

NASA’s largest commercial partner, SpaceX, meanwhile, has developed its own EVA spacesuit, which debuted during the first civilian spacewalk on September’s Polaris Dawn mission. The company claims it will one day manufacture thousands of suits for future astronauts to build and explore on Mars.

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During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, NASA officials announced that the Artemis II and Artemis III moon missions—planned for this year and next, respectively—will be pushed to September 2025 and September 2026. Artemis II is expected to put NASA astronauts in lunar orbit, while Artemis III aims to land them on the moon, where they would become the first humans to visit the lunar south pole.

The Artemis program is effectively the descendant of the Apollo missions, which concluded decades earlier. But unlike Apollo, it represents a shift toward leveraging private sector companies, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, for key vehicle components.

Despite speculation that the Artemis lunar landing could be pushed to Artemis IV—which NASA affirmed is still on track for 2028—the space agency said no changes will be made to the flight plan of either mission, and no flights will be added. However, for a variety of reasons, many related to safety, both Artemis II and III will fly later than initially planned.

As Jim Free, associate administrator of NASA, put it: “We’ll launch when we’re ready.”

Safety First

Attending Tuesday’s press conference were Free, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Deputy Associate Administrator of the Moon to Mars program Amit Kshatriya, and Associate Administrator of the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate Catherine Koerner. The four officials—plus representatives from NASA industry partners such as SpaceX and Lockheed Martin—fielded questions from media about why the missions were delayed.

According to NASA, several issues discovered during Artemis I, which carried the agency’s reusable Orion capsule around the moon in 2022, are causing delays to Artemis II. These center around the spacecraft’s heat shield, abort capabilities, and electrical systems and could pose threats its occupants.

Kshatriya said heat shield erosion during Artemis I caused pieces of the thermal cover to fly off—an outcome not predicted by NASA. The agency said it discovered the issue while rewatching the watershed flight and has spent “the bulk of 2023” working to understand its root cause.

Orion is also dealing with a design flaw in the motor valve circuitry for its life support system, which was tested and approved for Artemis II but not the subsequent mission. The spacecraft’s digital motor controllers are hampering its carbon dioxide scrubber, which absorbs the gas to provide breathable air for astronauts. Artemis I did not test any life support systems, but they will be added to Artemis II along with a new abort system.

Further, NASA found a deficiency in Orion’s batteries. The issue won’t hinder the spacecraft’s ability to separate from the booster in an emergency, but the agency said it could cause unexpected effects.

“We’re still very early in that investigation,” said Kshatriya.

The effort to replace and retest the faulty components will be tremendous, NASA said, but essential for Orion to fly on Artemis II and beyond. Nelson said the revised mission timeline will “give Artemis teams more time to work through the challenges.”

Even more work will need to be done for Artemis III, which NASA said will introduce several new components and systems: a human landing system (HLS), docking module, propellant transfer system, and spacesuits to name a few. Kshatriya said the timeline for that mission remains “very aggressive.”

Free said NASA expects the development of SpaceX’s Starship HLS and Axiom’s next-generation spacesuits will take additional time. The agency has also yet to solve the issue of propellant transfer, or in-flight refilling, which involves a spacecraft drawing fuel from another spacecraft or stationary outpost.

A SpaceX representative attending the media briefing estimated the company will need to complete ten refueling missions before Starship HLS lands on the moon, which the company hopes will happen in 2025. 

The representative added that SpaceX’s Starship—the largest and most powerful rocket ever built—is working toward a NASA tipping point demo to explore propellant transfer between tanks. The company does not consider this a propellant test mission, but the maneuver will be studied during Starship’s third orbital test flight, expected in February.

When asked, the representative did not provide a minimum number of Starship orbital test flights needed before a lunar landing. But the propellant transfer flight, whenever that happens, will be the one that matters most.

“We’ve been building the machine to build the machine,” the representative said.

Free added that development of NASA’s Gateway space station—which is expected to fly on a future Artemis mission—and the Block 1B variant of its Space Launch System (SLS) also necessitated delays. 

But NASA officials said the larger gaps between the missions will allow the agency to incorporate more lessons from previous flights into each increasingly complex Artemis project. SpaceX and Blue Origin, for example, will be required to develop cargo variants of their human lunar landers as part of their obligations for Artemis IV, NASA said Tuesday.

A Clearer Outlook?

When one questioner mentioned the space industry’s doubts about the new timeline—arising from previous Artemis delays—Free explained what makes NASA so confident.

He said the agency now has a better understanding of Orion and other Artemis vehicles. The bigger reassurance, however, is the industry’s support: Free said 11 industry and contractor partners attended Tuesday’s press conference, and all of them contributed to the revised mission schedule.

Kshatriya pointed to the SLS core stage delivery to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility as a sign of readiness, adding that the spacecraft’s booster segments are ready to stack and the upper stage is “ready to go.” Further, NASA’s European Space Agency (ESA) partners will ship a service model to the agency in a few months, he said.

Nelson, meanwhile, dispelled fears that China could beat the U.S. to a moon landing. He expressed confidence that the rival superpower would not reach the lunar surface before Artemis III. But with the delay, the two competitors’ schedules are undoubtedly more aligned.

Nelson also pointed to the agency’s recent progress, most notably a partnership with the United Arab Emirates to build the airlock for Gateway and the launch of Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) missions.

The NASA administrator emphasized that Artemis will only be the beginning of the new era of American spaceflight. The agency is also developing its Moon to Mars program, which Nelson said will rely on international partners to land an American on Mars. Reaching the moon, he said, will be the first step toward missions to the red planet in the future.

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SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster flew for the second time on Saturday, and the results were a mixed bag. Stage separation—the point at which the spaceship’s maiden voyage in April went off the rails—was a success. But like last time, both the rocket and booster exploded and were lost, prompting another mishap investigation by the FAA. Starship will not be able to fly again until the investigation and a launch license evaluation are concluded.

The 400-foot-tall spacecraft took off from Starbase—SpaceX’s launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas, just off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico—Saturday morning after the launch was postponed from Friday. All 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster fired this time, unlike in April, when a handful of them failed.

Starship’s second test flight successfully debuted a hot-stage separation system, one of “well over 1,000” changes SpaceX made to the design, according to CEO Elon Musk. In hot-stage separation, the upper stage engines are ignited while the booster’s engines are still firing and the two stages remain attached. Previously, the company turned off the booster engines first.

According to SpaceX, Saturday was the first time a vehicle as large as Starship successfully pulled off the technique.

Although the new system achieved its goal, the booster promptly exploded—or experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” in SpaceX parlance—over the Gulf of Mexico, where it was meant to splash down intact. A few minutes later, after the Starship upper stage reached space, SpaceX engineer and livestream host John Insprucker said mission control lost contact with the spacecraft.

“We think we may have lost the second stage,” Insprucker said on the broadcast.

About 47 minutes into SpaceX’s livestream and eight minutes into the flight, as a camera follows the upper stage, an explosion is visible. Insprucker said engineers believed an automated flight termination plan was initiated, though the reason is still unclear. 

Starship had reached about 91 miles in altitude—well past the widely accepted boundary between the atmosphere and space—but was expected to fly more than halfway around the Earth before splashing down off the coast of Hawaii.

“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and [Saturday’s] test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary,” the company said on Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

Starship’s second voyage lasted twice as long as its first, and SpaceX appears to be getting close to nailing stage separation. However, both of the spacecraft’s reusable components were lost. And the behemoth of a rocket is now out of commission while the FAA investigates—again.

“A mishap occurred during the SpaceX Starship OFT-2 launch from Boca Chica, Texas, on Saturday, November 18,” the agency said in a statement. “The anomaly resulted in a loss of the vehicle. No injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA will oversee the SpaceX-led mishap investigation to ensure SpaceX complies with its FAA-approved mishap investigation plan and other regulatory requirements.”

A mishap investigation—which had grounded Starship since April—is standard when a launch does not go as planned. SpaceX will now need to compile a report on what went wrong, as well as actions it can take to ensure the next launch goes smoothly, both of which must be approved by the FAA.

The company will also need to apply for a second license modification in order to add more Starship launches to its manifest, which can involve coordination with other federal agencies such as NASA. 

There is no timeline for either process, but the FAA’s initial mishap investigation opened in April and was closed in September. A modified launch license followed in mid-November.

However, unlike the previous test, a water-cooled steel plate installed beneath Starbase prevented ash and debris from being flung for miles. And having been through the investigation and license evaluation process already, it’s possible SpaceX is able to get through a second round of inquiries more quickly.

Fly Me to the Moon

SpaceX’s “iterative design” or “fail fast, but learn faster” philosophy has allowed the company to make steady progress on its Starlink satellites and Crew Dragon capsules, both of which are launching routinely. It could be argued that’s been the case for Starship so far as well, given the successes the company achieved with Saturday’s launch. 

Still, SpaceX may need to pick up the pace. Musk’s ultimate goal is for Starship to eventually ferry hundreds of humans at a time to the moon, Mars, and beyond. The SpaceX CEO has claimed it will land astronauts on Mars by 2029. Those early arrivals are expected to build a base that could one day support a colony of 1 million on the “Red Planet.” But before Musk turns to other planets, there are projects on Earth riding on his company’s success.

In 2021, NASA picked SpaceX to land humans on the moon for the first time in half a century, contracting it to develop a variant of Starship capable of putting astronauts on the lunar surface. That mission, Artemis III, will be preceded by an uncrewed Starship demonstration flight to the moon and back. It will be followed by the Artemis IV mission, for which SpaceX has already been enlisted.

Simply put, NASA won’t be able to get the U.S. back in the space race without Starship. Already, agency officials are “concerned” about SpaceX’s progress, with one top manager predicting Artemis III will “probably” slide from 2025 to 2026.

Musk and Co. are left with a conundrum. To keep Artemis on schedule, SpaceX will need to conduct more Starship test flights, and fast. But moving too quickly can create outcomes such as Saturday’s, which, despite building on the first flight, caused the FAA to intervene. Then again, there’s little time to waste, and the company won’t be able to learn much about the largest rocket ever built without flying it.

As SpaceX continues to iterate on Starship, the company is also contending with a lawsuit against the FAA, which it joined as a co-defendant in May. The suit, filed by five environmental groups, alleges the regulator wasn’t thorough enough in its assessment of the rocket’s potential impacts on the surrounding wildlife.

Jared Margolis, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, a plaintiff in the case, told FLYING the lawsuit is still ongoing. Margolis criticized the FAA’s written reevaluation of Starship’s environmental impact, arguing the agency should have required more of SpaceX before green lighting both test flights. He said the center is considering adding more claims to its suit for the FAA’s failure to fully analyze the impact of April’s launch.

More recently, SpaceX has come under fire for its workplace safety culture, which a special report from Reuters earlier this month characterized as “lax.” According to the report, investigators used government records and interviews to determine there were 600 previously unreported injuries suffered on the job by SpaceX workers—including one death—since 2014. Several U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern about the report’s findings.

While the lawsuit and Reuters investigation did not impact Saturday’s launch, they present more obstacles for SpaceX to overcome before Starship flies to the moon. Another setback could have a ripple effect on America’s space exploration goals.

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The Artemis III mission is set to send astronauts to the lunar south pole, marking humans’ first return to the moon’s surface in more than 50 years.

“Prada’s technical expertise with raw materials, manufacturing techniques, and innovative design concepts will bring advanced technologies instrumental in ensuring not only the comfort of astronauts on the lunar surface, but also the much-needed human factors considerations absent from legacy spacesuits,” Michael Suffredini, CEO of Axiom Space, said Wednesday.

• READ MORE: NASA Selects Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace To Provide New Spacesuits

Last summer, NASA announced its commercial partnership with Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to provide the next-generation spacesuits and spacewalk systems for the upcoming Artemis missions. The space agency noted at the time the contract would allow for additional vendors as the “commercial space services market evolves.”

The Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit design will provide increased flexibility and environmental protection for astronauts. “Using innovative technologies and design, these spacesuits will enable greater exploration of the lunar surface than ever before,” Axiom Space said.

• READ MORE: Booster Delivery Marks NASA Artemis II Moon Mission Milestone

Engineers from the Milan-based apparel designer will work with a team from Axiom Space throughout the design process, the companies said.

“We are honored to be a part of this historic mission with Axiom Space,” Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group marketing director, said in a statement. “Our decades of experimentation, cutting-edge technology, and design know-how—which started back in the ’90s with Luna Rossa challenging for the America’s Cup [sailing competition]—will now be applied to the design of a spacesuit for the Artemis era. It is a true celebration of the power of human creativity and innovation to advance civilization.”

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Northrop Grumman on Tuesday delivered 10 booster motor segments, which the space agency will use for its Artemis II mission, to Kennedy Space Center in Florida from its manufacturing plant in Utah. The delivery should keep NASA on track to launch the first crewed Artemis mission, which is expected to send four astronauts on a jaunt around the moon in November 2024—so long as prelaunch activities continue to go as planned.

The 10 segments built by Northrop will form twin solid rocket boosters designed to power NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) super-heavy lift rocket. In preparation for Artemis II, the boosters will be the first element of the SLS to be stacked on the mobile launch platform.

NASA says the SLS “is the only rocket that can send [NASA’s Orion deep exploration spacecraft], astronauts, and supplies to the moon in a single mission.” It has a greater payload mass, volume, and departure energy than any other single rocket and made its debut on the successful Artemis I mission, the program’s first, uncrewed flight, last November.

According to Northrop, the twin boosters will provide some 7.2 million pounds of thrust at launch—more than three-quarters of the total power generated by the SLS. They’ll help Orion reach 24,500 mph on its way to the moon. Last week, the agency and its contractor completed a subscale booster thrust test to validate the technology.

“The arrival of the SLS solid rocket booster motor segments is an important turning point as NASA and our Artemis partners begin readying for stacking and launch preparations for Artemis II,” said Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars program office at NASA headquarters. “Fully stacked, these boosters for NASA’s SLS rocket are the largest, most powerful ever built for spaceflight and will help send the first astronauts around the moon [for the first time] in more than 50 years.”

The 10 booster motor segments that will form the @NASA_SLS rocket’s twin, five-segment solid rocket boosters for the @NASAArtemis II mission, arrived at @NASAKennedy on Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. Due to their weight, the booster motor segments traveled by rail across eight states… pic.twitter.com/LkH5hqBM7C

— NASA's Exploration Ground Systems (@NASAGroundSys) September 26, 2023

Now, teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) program are processing each segment before integrating them at Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building. They’ll then inspect the motor, forward, and aft assemblies of the twin boosters, rotate them to a vertical position, and move the segments one at a time for stacking, forming a pair of 17-story-tall boosters.

The @NASAArtemis II aft skirts for the @NASA_SLS rocket’s twin solid rocket boosters were transported from the Booster Fabrication Facility to the Rotation Processing and Surge Facility (RPSF) at @NASAKennedy in Florida on Monday, Sept. 25, 2023.

The aft skirts were refurbished… pic.twitter.com/noiKfqglCm

— NASA's Exploration Ground Systems (@NASAGroundSys) September 27, 2023

After the boosters are stacked, engineers will then integrate the SLS’s 212-foot core stage, for which Boeing is the lead contractor. All four RS-25 engines for the core were structurally joined this week at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The engines, built by California-based Aerojet Rocketdyne, will provide an additional 2 million pounds of thrust at launch

Combined, the boosters and engines will deliver 8.8 million pounds of thrust. That number mirrors SLS data from Artemis I, which sent an uncrewed Orion capsule into orbit 40,000 miles beyond the moon. Figures collected from the 1.4 million-mile journey showed the 312-foot-tall rocket “met or exceeded all performance expectations.”

As NASA works toward stacking the SLS, EGS teams are simultaneously conducting ground systems tests, the first of which took place last week.

Artemis II: On Schedule?

Northrop’s delivery of the booster motor segments, as well as the integration of the RS-25 engines to the core stage, keeps NASA in line with a rough timeline shared with Ars Technica last month by Jeremy Parsons, deputy manager of the EGS program.

By Parsons’ estimate, the SLS core stage will ship to Kennedy from NASA’s New Orleans assembly plant next month. Stacking of the twin boosters is expected to begin in February, followed by core stage stacking in April. Orion will also be fueled that month and is expected to be stacked sometime in mid-2024. But the timeline gets a bit fuzzy by then, and Ars Technica reported Artemis II’s launch date “almost certainly will slip two or three years.”

The goal of Artemis II is to test Orion and SLS systems before Artemis III returns U.S. and Canadian astronauts to the moon. Going by Parsons’ timeline, the mission is expected to launch nearly two years after Artemis I, which damaged the mobile launch pad more severely than anticipated.

However, the massive structure returned to Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy in August, and excitement is starting to build for the marquee mission.

Human for Scale: Look closely and you may be able to spot one of our team members standing near the railing of '0' deck of the towering mobile launcher, which will launch @NASAArtemis II around the Moon next year. The launcher, which stands 380-feet-tall above ground, is… pic.twitter.com/9yAOTJMYr4

— NASA's Exploration Ground Systems (@NASAGroundSys) September 26, 2023

Artemis II crewmembers—who are slated to also fly on Artemis III—were revealed in April, representing the first woman and person of color to land on the moon. Mission specialist Christian Koch and Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, who is Black, will gain those respective distinctions. They’ll be joined by NASA astronaut and Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, as well as mission specialist Jeremy Hanson of the Canadian Space Agency.

Their mission will last around 10 days, sending the four explorers around the moon and paving the way for the first crewed lunar landing since the Apollo program. Northrop has also completed motor segments for Artemis III and is building more for future missions.

The landmark journey is planned for 2025. But a delay to its precursor or snags in the delivery of key hardware could push it back. Jim Free, associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD), remarked in June that delays to the lunar lander variant of SpaceX’s Starship will “probably” cause the timeline to slip to 2026. SpaceX is embroiled in an FAA mishap investigation that has set back Starship’s orbital test flight program.

Beyond Artemis III, NASA hopes to launch crewed lunar missions once per year with an initial focus on establishing “surface capabilities” for potential long-term human settlements on the rocky satellite. Artemis missions will also support the buildout of Gateway, a planned orbital outpost around the moon and possible staging point for future deep space exploration.

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That’s the word from NASA Inspector General Paul Martin during March 1 testimony before the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. The mission to put the first woman and person of color on the moon had already been pushed from 2024 to 2025. 

• READ MORE: Artemis Moon Landing Delayed

“Given the time needed to develop and fully test the HLS (human landing system) and NASA’s next-generation spacesuits needed for lunar exploration, the date for a crewed lunar landing will likely slip to 2026 at the earliest,” Martin told lawmakers. 

The inspector general said development of the necessary spacesuits for walking on the moon was 20 months behind schedule because of reduced funding in fiscal year 2021, “COVID-19 impacts, and ongoing technical issues.”

Anticipated Delays for Artemis I 

The program’s first launch—an uncrewed mission dubbed Artemis I—is expected later this year. Artemis’s Orion spacecraft will lift off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center with NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS)—the world’s most powerful rocket.

“We estimate that NASA is progressing toward the first launch of the integrated SLS/Orion space flight system by summer 2022,” Martin said.

The second mission, Artemis II, will be the first crewed mission—circling the moon without landing and then returning to Earth. Martin said that mission faces “additional schedule delays—until at least mid-2024—due to the second mission’s reuse of Orion components from Artemis I.”

All the delays will have a cascading effect on the program, he said. “NASA’s initial three Artemis missions face varying degrees of technical difficulties that will push launch schedules from months to years past their current goals.”

Warning: High Costs Could Derail Moon and Mars Missions

Delays aren’t the only issue threatening Artemis. Martin also warned Congress about unsustainable costs. “Given our estimate of a $4.1 billion per-launch cost of the SLS/Orion system for at least the first four Artemis missions, NASA must accelerate its efforts to identify ways to make its Artemis-related programs more affordable,” he said.

“Otherwise, relying on such an expensive single-use, heavy-lift rocket system will, in our judgment, inhibit if not derail NASA’s ability to sustain its long-term human exploration goals of the moon and Mars.”

Cost increases, Martin said, “may be controlled in part” with “fixed-price, milestone-based contracts” where contractors such as SpaceX share the financial burdens. 

First Rollout of Artemis I

Engineers and technicians have been preparing Artemis I inside NASA’s huge Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for its first rollout to launch complex 39, where Apollo 11—history’s first crewed lunar landing mission—launched from in 1969.

The rollout, scheduled for later this month, will also be reminiscent of Apollo, as the 322-foot tall rocket and spacecraft are transported at a snail’s pace to the launch pad four miles away. There, NASA plans a “wet dress rehearsal” test, when technicians will fuel the rocket and make sure all systems are performing as expected.

Following that, Artemis I will be transported back to the VAB for further preparations before launch. 

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