Artemis II will not include descent engines, surface operations, or lunar surface extravehicular activity.
Artemis II will test deep-space life support, communications, Orion's heat shield, and crew operations in the cislunar environment.
If Artemis II succeeds in early 2026, the United States will have reestablished human lunar-class operations years before China flies its first crewed lunar mission.
Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen are waiting in quarantine in Houston for Artemis II.
Teams encountered liquid hydrogen leaks and audio dropouts during the Artemis II wet dress rehearsal.
NASA decided to schedule a second full wet dress rehearsal for Artemis II to consolidate results and ensure all parameters fall within expected margins.
The Artemis II wet dress rehearsal countdown reached T minus 5 minutes 15 seconds before halting.
The March 2026 launch window provides additional time to verify operational conditions before the crewed Artemis II launch.
The Artemis II wet dress rehearsal included propellant loading and simulation of the final countdown phases without proceeding to engine ignition.
NASA is targeting March 7, 2026 at 01:29 UTC (NET) as the earliest possible launch opportunity for Artemis II.
Artemis II is a 10-day free-return mission that will loop around the lunar far side and return to Earth.
April 2026 is the formal planning backstop for Artemis II if weather or technical issues push the mission later.
NASA will conduct a second wet dress rehearsal for Artemis II to allow teams time to review data and investigate issues from the first rehearsal.
NASA trained Artemis II astronauts to fly Orion in a realistic simulator emulator.
NASA’s strategy for elevated radiation events is for the Artemis II crew to increase protection by repositioning items inside Orion.
NASA published an article on January 28, 2026 explaining that Artemis II will need to transmit crew voice, images, video, and health data reliably across distances of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
Radiation particles from strong solar events can reach Artemis II astronauts within hours.
During Artemis II, NASA plans to beam 4K HD videos and pictures via O2O to two suitably located ground stations during minimal cloud coverage.
NASA partnered with the German Space Agency (DLR) on an upgrade to Orion’s radiation sensing capabilities for Artemis II.
SKY Perfect JSAT’s ground station in Japan is selected as a facility to receive signals from the Orion spacecraft during Artemis II.