Artemis II set for historic crewed moon mission launch
NASA’s Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft stand vertical on mobile launcher 1 at Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. The Artemis II test flight will take Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist Christina Koch from NASA, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen from the CSA (Canadian Space Agency), around the Moon and back to Earth. PHOTO: NASA
NASA is set to launch four astronauts as soon as Wednesday evening on a 10-day flight around the moon, marking the most ambitious US space mission in decades and a major step toward returning humans to the lunar surface before China's first crewed landing.
The mission dubbed Artemis 2 has been years in the making after facing repeated setbacks, but is finally scheduled to take off from Florida as early as April 1 at 6:24pm.
The team featuring Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Jeremy Hansen, will set forth on the approximately 10-day mission and hurtle around Earth’s natural satellite without landing — much like Apollo 8 did in 1968.
The journey marks a series of historic accomplishments: it will send the first person of colour, the first woman and the first non-American on a lunar mission. It is also the inaugural crewed flight of NASA’s new lunar rocket, dubbed SLS.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman posted on his X account about the launch.
Tomorrow, we launch.
At sunset tonight, Artemis II waits on the pad, ready to carry astronauts potentially farther than any humans have traveled in more than half a century.
The next era of exploration begins. pic.twitter.com/vdABkjRrnfIt will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, just one pad away from where the last moon-bound astronauts of the US Apollo programme lifted off more than half a century ago.
The crew had been in a two-week quarantine leading up to liftoff and spent time with their families over the weekend at the Kennedy Space Centre's beach house, a spot where astronauts rest before blasting off into space.
"Certainly all indications are right now, we are in excellent, excellent shape as we get into count," launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson told reporters on Monday.
Weather conditions appeared favourable for an on-time liftoff, with only a 20% chance of souring within the agency's two-hour launch window on Wednesday. If the weather worsens and triggers a scrub, NASA could try again to launch any day until April 6, after which it would wait until April 30 for its next opportunity.
Delay in launch
The launch had originally been planned for as early as February 6, and then March 6, until a pesky hydrogen leak prompted NASA to roll the rocket back to its vehicle assembly building for scrutiny.
The mission was originally due to take off as early as February. But repeated setbacks stalled the mission and even necessitated rolling the rocket back to its hangar for analysis and repairs.
Now Amit Kshatriya, the US space agency’s associate administrator, said at a recent briefing that “the vehicle is ready, the system is ready. The crew is ready.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, NASA officials voiced confidence that engineering operations and final preparations were proceeding smoothly — and that the weather was looking promising.
If Wednesday’s launch is cancelled or delayed, there are more liftoff opportunities through April 6, although weather later in the week was looking slightly less favourable, officials said.
“We’ll have to monitor those feisty cumulus clouds and potentially a few showers and breezes as well,” Mark Burger, the launch weather officer, said on Tuesday.
But Burger added that even if there are a few rain showers, “none of those look particularly vigorous” and would likely be intermittent on Wednesday — “we should be able to find some clear air to launch Artemis”.
Farthest trip in history
The Artemis II mission will send the crew on a winding, nearly 10-day journey around the moon and back, sending them some 252,000 miles (406,000 km) into space - the farthest humans have ever travelled.
The current record for the farthest spaceflight at roughly 248,000 miles is held by the three-man crew of the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970, which was beset by technical problems after an oxygen tank exploded and was unable to land on the moon as planned.
Humans have not left Earth's orbit since the final Apollo mission in 1972.
NASA launched its first Artemis mission without crew in 2022, sending the gumdrop-shaped Orion spacecraft on a similar path around the moon and back.
Artemis II will pose a greater test of Orion and the SLS rocket. The astronauts on board will test critical life-support systems, crew interfaces and communications. They will also take manual control of Orion in space roughly three hours after launch to test its steering and manoeuvrability, a key feature should its automated systems fail.
Lockheed Martin builds Orion, while Boeing and Northrop Grumman have led the development of SLS since 2010, a programme partly known for its ballooning costs at an estimated $2 billion to $4 billion per launch.
Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are racing to develop lunar landers that NASA will use to put its astronauts on the lunar surface.
The Artemis II mission is a key early step in the agency's multibillion-dollar Artemis programme that envisions a long-term settlement on the lunar south pole.