NASA officials on Tuesday said the agency’s first crewed flight in its Artemis program – a trip around the moon and back – is on track for launch in April next year and could potentially be moved up to February.

The space agency’s Artemis program is the flagship U.S. effort to return humans to the moon, a multibillion dollar series of missions that rival a similar effort by China, which is aiming for a 2030 astronaut moon landing.

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(Reporting by Joey Roulette)