t 6:35 p.m. Eastern Time on April 1, 2026, the night sky above Cape Canaveral split apart. NASA’s Space Launch System — the most powerful rocket ever flown with a crew — ignited its engines and lifted four astronauts off the surface of the Earth for the first time in over half a century, bound for the Moon. The crowd roared. The ground trembled. History moved.

Artemis II is not a landing mission. But it is something arguably more profound: proof that humanity can do this again. With four crew members inside the Orion spacecraft, NASA has sent the first crewed flight beyond low-Earth orbit since Gene Cernan stepped off the lunar surface in December 1972. The path from that moment to this one spans more than fifty years of science, setbacks, political will, and accumulated ambition.

10Mission days
~230KMiles to Moon
4Crew members
25Kmph reentry speed

The Crew of Artemis II

The four individuals strapped into Orion represent a deliberate statement about who the future of exploration belongs to. Among them are the first woman, the first person of African descent, and the first Canadian to fly beyond Earth’s orbit.

RW
Reid Wiseman
Commander · NASA
Veteran astronaut leading humanity’s return to cislunar space
VG
Victor Glover
Pilot · NASA
First person of African descent to travel to the Moon’s vicinity
CK
Christina Koch
Mission Specialist · NASA
First woman to travel to the vicinity of the Moon
JH
Jeremy Hansen
Mission Specialist · CSA
First Canadian — and first non-American — to fly toward the Moon

“We firmly felt the power of your perseverance during every second of that burn.”

— Jeremy Hansen, CSA Astronaut, after the translunar injection burn

The Journey: Ten Days Around the Moon and Back

Unlike the Apollo missions, Artemis II will not attempt a lunar landing. Instead, the mission follows what engineers call a free-return trajectory — the spacecraft uses the Moon’s own gravity to swing the crew around and slingshot them back toward Earth. It’s an elegant, fuel-efficient path, and a safer one while the new systems are being validated for the first time with a human crew aboard.

Day 1 · April 1
Launch from Kennedy Space Center
SLS lifts off at 6:35 p.m. ET from Pad 39B. Orion separates and enters Earth orbit.
Day 1 · Evening
Translunar injection burn
A 5-minute, 49-second engine burn commits the crew to the lunar flyby — the point of no return.
Day 3–4
Record distance from Earth
The crew surpasses Apollo 13’s record of 248,655 miles — farther from Earth than any human has ever been.
Day 5 · Monday
Lunar flyby at ~5,000 miles altitude
Orion swings around the Moon’s far side, briefly cutting communications with Earth. Geologists-trained crew photographs never-before-seen vistas of the far side.
Days 6–9
Return transit & science operations
Science experiments continue as the crew coasts back toward Earth, collecting health data and conducting deep-space observations.
Day 10
Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean
Orion reenters at ~25,000 mph — the fastest crewed reentry ever — and splashes down off San Diego, recovered by the U.S. Navy.

Science on the Edge of the Possible

Every spare moment between orbital mechanics and spacecraft checks is filled with science. NASA has packed this test flight with experiments that will directly shape how future astronauts live and work in deep space — and beyond.

🧬
AVATAR
Organ-on-a-chip devices simulate individual astronaut organs to study radiation and microgravity effects. This is the first test beyond the Van Allen Belt.
🩺
ARCHAR
Crew wear sleep and movement monitors throughout the mission. Saliva samples test immune response to radiation, isolation, and distance from Earth.
🌙
Lunar geology
Trained by geologists on Earth, the crew will photograph and document the far side of the Moon from an altitude never reached by any human before.
🛰
CubeSat deployments
Several miniature satellites are deployed to high Earth orbit, expanding the research scope of the mission without additional cost or crew time.
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Why This Mission Matters

The Moon program has been a long road. Artemis I, an uncrewed test in late 2022, successfully flew Orion around the Moon and back, but engineers discovered significant erosion in the heat shield — prompting a redesign of the reentry approach. For Artemis II, the skip reentry has been replaced with a steeper, more direct profile, trading precision for safety. At 25,000 miles per hour, it will be the fastest crewed atmospheric entry in history.

Artemis II’s real job is validation. Every system that will one day carry astronauts to the lunar surface — life support, guidance, navigation, communications deep in cislunar space — gets tested with human lives on the line for the first time. If this works, Artemis III, currently targeting 2028, will attempt the first crewed Moon landing since 1972, with a woman setting foot on the surface for the first time in human history.

“There’s a lot of little things that will divide us. It would be nice if this could just be some caulking, some reinforcement to fill in those spaces, to prevent division.”

— Victor Glover, NASA Astronaut, before launch

Life aboard Orion

The Orion capsule is compact, but the crew will have scheduled meals, two flavored beverages a day, and — for the first time in a lunar-class capsule — a toilet with an actual door. The menu includes barbecued beef brisket, vegetable quiche, mac and cheese, and fruit salad, all freeze-dried and shelf-stable. Crumbs in microgravity are a genuine hazard; NASA’s food team spent considerable effort making everything as crumb-free as possible in the confined cabin.

Your name is on board

NASA invited the public to submit their names before launch — stored on an SD card inside the Orion capsule, they are now traveling to the Moon and back. Over a hundred thousand people accepted. In a small but resonant way, the crew of Artemis II is carrying the world with them.

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The Longer Arc

Apollo ended because the political will evaporated. Artemis exists because the scientific, commercial, and geopolitical stakes of the Moon have only grown. Lunar ice — potentially abundant near the poles — could be split into hydrogen and oxygen, fueling rockets for the journey onward to Mars. NASA intends to build a permanent presence on the Moon: habitats, power systems, and eventually a Gateway station in lunar orbit. The Moon is not a destination anymore. It is a staging post.

What Artemis II accomplishes in ten days is more than a circumnavigation. It restores a capability that lapsed for fifty years and proves that the systems, the people, and the will exist to go much, much farther. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen are not returning to the Moon. They are opening a door that, if all goes well, will not close again.