After months of anticipation, Ikea opens Wednesday on University Drive.

Why it matters: Ranking high among Huntsville's most-wanted retailers, Ikea is bringing its new smaller-format store to the Rocket City, targeting the rapidly growing area for its first store in Alabama.

Catch up quick: The Swedish furniture giant opened its doors to local media Monday morning for a peek inside ahead of its Wednesday grand opening event.

• Store manager Brad Ellis, moving back to Huntsville from Memphis, where Ikea plans to close its store in May, told Axios the move is "a bit of a homecoming for me." He lived in Huntsville for about 15 years before leaving roughly a decade ago.

Zoom in: The 46,000-square-foot store is about one-sixth the footprint of the traditional Ikea store that can be found in Atlanta or Charlotte.

• The Huntsville store has about 5,000 items on display, about 2,000 of which are available for immediate takeaway, Ellis said, but that's about where the differences end.
• Ellis noted the store will offer its planning studio service, the same as a full-size Ikea store, as well as dedicated planners for kitchens, closet organization or living room organization systems.

What they're saying: "It's all about putting stores closer to where people are," Ellis said at the store Monday. "Fundamentally, you still get the same Ikea shopping experience."

• And the restaurant situation is similar, too, with the famous Swedish meatballs and other eats on offer, either to eat in-store or grab frozen to take home.

How it works: The store will be open 11am–7pm every day.

• For the grand opening Wednesday, though, doors open at 10am, but the festivities start earlier than that. The celebration, including giveaways, will begin at 8am and folks can start lining up at 7am.
• Ellis' pro tips: Get there early and be ready for a crowd.

The bottom line: "Huntsville is a growing market," Ellis told Axios. "It's the kind of place Ikea wants to be."

Artemis II is now looking at a potential April launch window.

Why it matters: NASA is preparing to send humans on a trip around the moon for the first time in half a century.

Catch up quick: On Feb. 21, following the mission's second wet dress rehearsal on Feb. 19, NASA observed an interrupted flow of helium to the Space Launch System rocket.

• "The systems worked during NASA's Artemis II wet dress rehearsals, but teams were not able to properly flow helium during normal operations and reconfigurations," NASA said in an announcement.
• Teams are reviewing the data and potential causes, including the interface between ground and rocket lines used to transport helium, a valve in the upper stage, and a filter between the ground and rocket.

Zoom in: Weather permitting, NASA will roll back Artemis II to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) as soon as today, a four-mile trek that will take hours.

• NASA says rolling back to the VAB "is required to determine the cause of the issue and fix it."
• The issue follows a hydrogen fuel leak during the mission's first wet dress rehearsal a few weeks ago that delayed the launch from February to March.

What we're watching: Pending the reviews, NASA hopes to preserve the April launch window, and will hold a media event to discuss the rollback and more plans.

More from Axios: Artemis II heads to launch with Marshall on deck

🖼️ "Joy Without Consent," an exhibit at Huntsville's Curated Gallery, is pushing back on Black stereotypes and creating a restorative community third space. (AL.com)

🎺 Huntsville's Black artists and educators were building America's musical legacy long before the city was known for its role in the space program. (Speakin' Out News)

🏆 Huntsville's firefighters honored their best and brightest at an annual award ceremony last week, including incidents of rescuing young children and pulling people from burning buildings. (City of Huntsville)

More new moms are having kids solo in their 40s, with births to unmarried women 40 and over doubling since 2007.

Why it matters: More women are choosing solo motherhood later in life, reshaping when and how Americans build families.

By the numbers: In the U.S, more than 1% of babies were born to unmarried women 40 and older in 2024, per CDC data, a small but fast-growing slice.

• And overall, about 40% of babies are born to unmarried women.

Yes, but: "Unmarried women" can include cohabitating couples.

What they're saying: "The majority of our members are having children via fertility [treatments]" and are in their "30s and 40-plus," says Kat Curtin, director of the international Single Mothers by Choice (SMC) support group.

• Members typically have "dated, come into their career, come into their life" and are ready to start a family, she says.
• "You don't go down this path and be confident that you can raise a child by yourself unless you have a level of independence and resiliency."

Catch up quick: When SMC started in 1981, adoption made up a larger share of members' paths to parenthood, Curtin says.

• Back then, she says, being a single mom by choice was "stigmatized" and seen as "selfish."
• But now, "There is more of a societal acceptance towards different family units, [including] single-parent households."

The intrigue: Small studies suggest children in single-mom-by-choice households fare as well as those in heterosexual two-parent families. Researchers also find these mothers tend to cultivate broader social support networks.

• Outcomes in divorced families look different.

What we're watching: TrumpRx is offering discounted fertility drugs. But medication is only one piece of IVF's high price tag — leaving questions about whether broader efforts will follow to expand access.