Artemis 2 Mission Launches for Trip Around the Moon

They’re on their way. After more than a decade’s worth of planning, delays, and revisions, the boosters on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) Block 1 rocket roared to life and lifted off from pad LC-39B in Florida on Wednesday, April 1st, at 6:35 p.m. EDT / 10:35 Universal Time, 11 minutes into the two hour launch window. The mission will send the Artemis 2 crew on a path around the Moon.

The launch was delayed from February to give maintenance crews time to troubleshoot hydrogen leaks, identified during a wet dress rehearsal on February 2nd as the rocket was being loaded with fuel, as well as helium valve leaks found in later tests. But this evening, the launch went off without a hitch.

There were some concerns about an intense solar flare that occurred on March 30th, which was classified as X-1.4. (X-class flares are the most powerful.) But NASA determined that the ejection of particles accompanying the flare delivered only a glancing blow to Earth’s space weather environment and would not impact the mission or its crew.

A Mission of Firsts

The mission marks several milestones: It’s the first human journey beyond low-Earth orbit since the Apollo program more than half a century ago. (Apollo 17, the last of the Apollo launches, flew in 1972.)

Artemis 2 is also the first crewed flight of SLS and Orion. The Orion capsule launched on a Delta IV Heavy in 2014, and again on SLS as part of Artemis 1 in 2022.

The crew consists of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. They are the first Moonbound crew to include both a Black astronaut and a woman. Canadian Hansen is also the first non-U.S. and non-NASA astronaut to leave low-Earth orbit on a lunar flight.

Mission Trajectory

Artemis 2 is a 10-day mission. Now that it has launched, we’ll watch for a series of apogee-raising maneuvers, followed by the Orion upper stage separation and Trans-Lunar Injection on Day 2. The mission will pass 10,427 kilometers (6,479 miles) past the lunar farside on April 7th, also known as Flight Day 6.

In fact, that day may take the crew the farthest from Earth that humans have ever been. The planned apogee is set for around 402,000 kilometers (250,000 miles) from Earth. That would just break the record that Apollo 13 set on April 14, 1970, when astronauts traveled 400,171 kilometers from Earth.

Artemis 2 will travel around the Moon on a free-return trajectory, looping once around our satellite before returning home for reentry and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on April 10th (Flight Day 10).

The SLS Rocket

The SLS rocket features hardware from the U.S. Space Shuttle program, including four RS-25 engines (the same as the shuttle orbiter) and two solid rocket boosters. The boosters are modified to have five stack segments each, versus the shuttle’s four. Orion pairs a crew module, built by Lockheed Martin, with a service module built by the European Space Agency.

Artemis 2 Science

Artemis 2’s mission objectives include checking out the entire system for flight from launch to reentry, as well as certifying the spacecraft systems for deep-space operations. But that doesn’t mean the mission can’t also do some science.

The mission will deploy four smallsat payloads, stashed on the Orion Stage Adapter:

• TACHELES, a German smallsat, will study the impact of the space environment on technical components in an effort to design more resilient lunar vehicles.
• ATENEA, Argentina’s satellite, will evaluate radiation shielding and its effects on long-range communication.
• Korea’s K-RadCube will carry a dosimeter, designed to detect the effects of space radiation on simulated human tissue.
• The Saudi Arabian Space Weather CubeSat 1 will study the impacts of space weather from its vantage point in high-Earth orbit.

The crew will also carry out several experiments, looking at the effect of the deep-space environment on the human body.

“Artemis 2 is a chance for astronauts to implement the lunar science skills they’ve (the astronauts and the mission team) developed in training,” says Kelsey Young in a recent press release. “It’s also an opportunity for scientists and engineers in mission control to collaborate during real-time operations.”

There will also be time for awe: On April 7th, the crew will pass behind the Moon, watching it cover first Earth and then the Sun. They might even view a bright sungrazing comet, C/2026 A1 MAPS, if it survives its blistering perihelion near the Sun on April 4th.

It will eclipse most of the inner solar system.

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— Tony Dunn (@tony873004.bsky.social) March 29, 2026 at 2:19 PM

Follow the Mission with Your Own Eyes

If skies are clear, you might want to try and track down Artemis 2 for yourself, through your backyard telescope. The mission is going into an initial 28.5° inclination relative to Earth’s equator. The first perigee pass probably offers your best shot, as the mission passes into Earth’s shadow outbound over eastern North America around 00:15 UT. (That’s assuming the mission launches at the start of its two-hour launch window.) The mission will probably top out at 7th magnitude, in range of binoculars or a small telescope.

Heavens-Above also has a new visualizer for tracking Artemis 2, post-launch. Another method for hunting down Artemis 2 is to use the NASA / JPL Horizons tool to generate sky coordinates for the mission. The mission should turn up in Space-Track as ID 2026-069A.

There are also plans for amateur radio astronomers to track Artemis II on its flight to the Moon and back.

And of course, you can also see it online, as astronomer Gianluca Masi and his Virtual Telescope Project will track Artemis 2 and feature it live, starting at 2:45 UT on April 2nd (10:45 PM EDT on April 1st).

Artemis 3 and Beyond

The newly revised Artemis initiative recently announced by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman would see the follow-on missions shuffled and accelerated. Specifically, NASA wants to intensify the upcoming launch cadence to once every 10-12 months. (Artemis 1 and 2 flew several years apart.)

According to the revised plan, Artemis 3 would test integration and capabilities in Earth orbit in early 2027, ahead of a crewed lunar landing for Artemis 4 sometime in early 2028. A launch cadence of once every six months would then support a possible human presence on the Moon starting in the 2030s.

The new direction also means the formal end — or at least indefinite suspension for — the Lunar Gateway, the orbital outpost that would have had astronauts largely orbiting the Moon in a complex, near-rectlinear halo trajectory. The new push is also notable for a renewed plan to use nuclear propulsion in space.

Of course, several key milestones still need to occur for all of this to fall into place: SpaceX’s Starship still needs to make it into orbit and demonstrate on-orbit refueling capability, the Starship Human Landing System needs to come together, and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander needs to make it to the Moon. And all of this has to happen within the variable NASA budget and after the exodus of 4,000 engineers and scientists from the agency.

Lots to consider, as humans head back to the Moon. Safe journeys to the crew of Artemis 2!