Artemis II launched from the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:35 PM EDT, on April 1st, 2026.
As a historic launch, Artemis II is the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis campaign, and will fly further than any human has gone before, as well as be the first crewed spacecraft to orbit the moon since the Apollo missions. This mission is a test flight to help prepare NASA and their technology for building a base on the moon as a stepping stone to Mars and beyond.
The crew consists of four astronauts: Reid Weisman, the commander, Victor Glover, the pilot, and Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, the mission specialists. The mission will last ten days and won’t feature a landing on the moon, instead orbiting, and then letting earth’s gravity bring them back to their return.
According to the Washington Post, “The Artemis II launch marks a risky, expensive, technically challenging landmark — the formal reopening of human ambition to explore deep space.”
The Artemis campaign features a newly designed spacecraft, the Orion, designed with the capabilities to send crews to the moon and beyond, as well as the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, the only rocket capable of sending the “Orion rocket, a crew, and cargo directly to the moon in a single launch.” (nasa.gov)
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