NASA’s Artemis II lunar flyby mission, with the next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule, sits on Pad 39B ahead of the launch of the Artemis II mission at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. File
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Reuters
The NASA Artemis II mission is scheduled for liftoff at 6:24 p.m. EDT (3:54 a.m.) on Thursday (April 2, 2026). If the lift-off is successful, the giant rocket will send humans to near the moon for the first time in more than half a century. In so doing, it will make an important milestone for the U.S. space programme.Read: Artemis II, the international space race, and what is at stake for the U.S.The Artemis II mission uses the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the crew capsule is called Orion. The SLS will propel Orion into a free-return trajectory around the far side of the moon, reaching around 7,500 km from the moon’s surface before the earth’s gravity pulls them back to splash down in the Pacific Ocean in a little over a week.Also Read | ‘I’m really proud’: Ed Dwight — first Black astronaut candidate reflects on historic Moon missionThe mission does not plan to land on the moon. Instead, NASA is flying it to prove that the whole system — from the ground teams to the rocket and its crew — works as designed and the processes to land humans on the moon are ready.
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