It’s humanity’s first trip to the moon since 1972, and NASA plans to prove the systems for returning people to lunar space with a fast, out-and-back flight under the Artemis II mission, launching from Kennedy Space Center in Florida and targeting less than 10 days total time.
Artemis II will send astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen on a lunar fly-around, a throwback to Apollo-era mission profiles that use the moon and Earth’s gravity rather than requiring the crew to slow down, stop, or circle the lunar surface. NASA’s plan calls for a quick out-and-back with no moonwalk, with the upcoming Artemis II test flight presented as a first step in “settling the moon” this time around after practice missions.
The mission’s crew is billed by NASA and the agency’s partners as diverse, with the flight expected to feature the first woman and the first person of color to travel on an Artemis mission, and the first non-American astronaut on the spacecraft as well. Koch, who previously took part in an International Space Station mission that lasted 328 days spanning 2019 and 2020, also holds a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman and participated in the first all-female spacewalk. Glover, a Navy test pilot, was the first Black astronaut to live and work aboard the space station, and Hansen is described as the lone space rookie on the crew.
In command of Artemis II is Wiseman, a retired Navy captain who lived aboard the space station in 2014 and later headed NASA’s astronaut corps. The four astronauts are also described as ranging in age from 47 to 50, combining experience from previous spaceflight and leadership roles with a new generation of crew members.
The rocket for Artemis II is NASA’s Space Launch System, which stands 322 feet (98 meters) tall and is described as more powerful than the Saturn V rocket at liftoff because it uses a pair of strap-on boosters. The Orion capsule will sit atop the rocket to carry the crew. NASA has said the SLS uses liquid hydrogen fuel, and the mission has followed a development path that includes repeated hydrogen leak issues that grounded the shuttle program and a first SLS test flight in 2022 without astronauts aboard. More than three years later, Artemis II faced hydrogen leak problems during a February fueling practice run that missed the first launch window, with later helium-flow issues moving the mission into April.
After launch, NASA’s timeline calls for the astronauts to spend the first 25 hours circling Earth in a high, lopsided orbit. During that phase, the crew will practice docking by using the separated upper stage as a target and steering Orion around it, relying on their eyes rather than advanced range finders and keeping the capsule no closer than 33 feet (10 meters) from the stage. Wiseman said, “Sometimes simple stuff is the best,” describing the approach.
The flight then shifts toward the moon using Orion’s main engine to hurl the crew on a trajectory about 244,000 miles (393,000 kilometers) away, guided by a free-return path made famous in Apollo 13 that relies on the moon and Earth’s gravity to minimize fuel needs. On flight day six, Orion reaches its farthermost point from Earth, sailing about 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) beyond the moon, a distance expected to surpass Apollo 13’s distance record and make the Artemis astronauts the most remote travelers. The crew then emerges from behind the moon and heads straight home for a splashdown on flight day 10, nine days, one hour and 46 minutes after liftoff.
During the roughly six-hour flyby, the crew may view never-before-seen regions of the lunar far side, with the moon described as appearing the size of a basketball at arm’s length during the closest part of the passage. NASA’s geologist Kelsey Young will monitor the flyby from Mission Control in Houston, and Young said, “The moon is like such a unifying thing,” adding that “What we’re doing with this mission is going to bring that a little closer to everybody around the world.”
NASA says the crew will capture images not only with professional cameras but also with smartphones, adding that the mission includes the devices for picture-taking. The report also notes that while NASA and private companies have focused on reaching the moon’s near side—the side that constantly faces Earth—only China had planted landers on the far side, making the astronauts’ observations of the lunar far side particularly valuable for NASA.
Artemis II ends, like Apollo missions, with a splashdown in the Pacific. All eyes will focus on Orion’s heat shield as the capsule plunges through the atmosphere, with the shield described as having taken the biggest beating during a 2022 test flight when charred chunks were gouged out; the heat shield is being retooled for future capsules but remains the original design for Artemis II. NASA says it is limiting heat exposure during reentry by shortening the capsule’s descent, and that Navy recovery ships will be stationed off the coast of San Diego as Orion parachutes into the ocean.
Sources: Associated Press (Marcia Dunn, March 31, 2026).