Washington, D.C. | September 24, 2025
NASA has reaffirmed April 2026 as the official launch date for its Artemis II mission, the first crewed flight around the Moon in over five decades, while exploring the possibility of accelerating the liftoff to as early as February 2026 if all safety and technical benchmarks are met.
The 10-day mission will see four astronauts—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen—embark on a lunar flyby aboard the Orion spacecraft, launched by the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
The flight will test critical systems including life support, navigation, and communications in deep space, marking a major step in NASA’s “Moon to Mars” exploration roadmap.
Agency officials emphasized that safety remains the overriding priority, with April 2026 serving as the baseline schedule. The February option, while under review, depends on readiness of hardware, successful integration, and clearance from engineering and safety teams.
NASA noted that significant upgrades have been made to the SLS and Orion systems to enhance performance, reliability, and crew safety. The mission will provide vital operational data ahead of Artemis III, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface later in the decade.
Artemis II is poised to become the first crewed mission to travel beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972, laying the groundwork for sustained lunar exploration and the eventual goal of human missions to Mars.
