NASA said it will introduce its next class of U.S. astronaut candidates on 22 Sept. at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, capping a selection process that sifted through more than 8,000 applications. The candidates will embark on nearly two years of training before becoming eligible for flights to low-Earth orbit, the Moon and eventually Mars. Immediately after the ceremony, the agency plans a series of briefings on 23–24 Sept. to preview Artemis II, the first crewed flight of the Artemis campaign. The approximately 10-day mission, targeted for no earlier than April 2026, will send NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a fly-by of the Moon aboard the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The updates will cover mission hardware, science objectives and training facilities. Wednesday’s scheduling announcement coincided with a separate news conference by the four SpaceX Crew-10 astronauts, who returned to Earth earlier this month after nearly seven months on the International Space Station. The crew outlined experiments conducted in orbit that support future deep-space exploration.