Brendan Byrne

NASA was working with a three-step process to land humans on the moon.

An uncrewed mission around the moon, followed by one with a crew doing a lunar flyby.

The third mission would take astronauts to the surface.

That third mission will now launch the Orion crew capsule to Earth orbit,

where it will practice rendezvousing with a lunar lander.

A fourth flight will return humans to the moon.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says it looks more like the agency's Apollo program.

No one at NASA forgot their history books.

They knew how to do this.

They've had plans like this for a long time.

Now we're putting it in action.

NASA is still proceeding with a crew test flight around the moon and back that could launch as early as April.

For NPR News, I'm Brendan Byrne in Orlando.

NASA was working with a three-step process to land humans on the moon.

An uncrewed mission around the moon, followed by one with a crew doing a lunar flyby.

The third mission would take astronauts to the surface.

That third mission will now launch the Orion crew capsule to Earth orbit, where it will practice rendezvousing with a lunar lander.

A fourth flight will return humans to the moon.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says it looks more like the agency's Apollo program.

No one at NASA forgot their history books.