(From left) Astronauts Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch greet the crowd at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Centre, April 3, 2023.
| Photo Credit: NASA
A: Artemis II is the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis programme. It will be the first time humans will travel to the vicinity of the moon since 1972. The 10-day flight will test the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft to ensure all life-support and navigation systems are safe for future lunar missions.
On January 9, NASA said the mission was in its final preparation stages. The earliest targeted launch date is February 6, 2026. NASA has also identified launch windows across February, March, and April 2026. The rocket stack is expected to be rolled out to Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Centre in mid-January for the final tests.
Artemis II has a four-person crew. The commander is Reid Wiseman; the pilot, Victor Glover; and Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are the mission specialists. Mr. Hansen is from the Canadian Space Agency, the rest are from NASA.
Rather than land on the moon, the crew will fly in a hybrid free-return trajectory. Specifically, after liftoff onboard the SLS, the Orion spacecraft will orbit the earth twice to check life support and manual handling capabilities. Then, it will travel around 10,300 km beyond the far side of the moon, after which gravity will pull the spacecraft back towards the earth for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
This mission is a critical test flight. If it is successful, NASA will greenlight Artemis III, which aims to land astronauts on the lunar South Pole.
Published – January 13, 2026 01:58 pm IST
