NASA astronauts are counting down to the Artemis II moon launch
NASA is targeting April 1 to launch a crew of four astronauts on a journey around the moon that will set the tone for the agency’s lunar exploration ambitions
NASA astronauts and officials showed a united front on Sunday, assuring that despite numerous delays and concerns about safety, they are optimistic about launching a crew to the moon as early as this week. This would be the first time humans venture beyond Earth’s orbit in over fifty years, since Apollo 17 in 1972.
NASA is aiming for an April 1 launch of the Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule to the moon. Although the mission has faced several delays due to testing issues, NASA has alternative dates later in April and throughout the year if further postponements are needed.
Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, stated on Sunday that everything points to the mission being ready. Shawn Quinn, NASA’s program manager for Exploration Ground Systems, mentioned that weather conditions currently look 80% favorable for a launch this week.
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“We can safely say the crew is ready. The rocket is ready, spaceship is ready. Ground Systems are ready. And we only need to have the weather to cooperate,” Quinn said.
The upcoming mission, Artemis II, will see the crew of four astronauts—Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen—potentially go further out in space than any other human has gone before. The ten-day mission will also test the rocket and crew capsule’s capabilities, enable observations of the more mysterious far side of the moon and a slew of other medical and science experiments.
“The team is ready to go, and the vehicle is ready to go,” Koch said at a separate crew-only press conference on Sunday. She and the rest of the crew arrived in Florida on Friday—they entered quarantine on March 18, a necessary step that helps to protect the crew from any would-be hitchhiking germs. But she caveated, the crew is prepared for further delays if needed. “Not for one second do we have an expectation that we are going. We will go when this vehicle tells us it’s ready, when the team is ready to go.”
The flight is designed to test out much of the technology that will be used in later moon missions, such as the planned Artemis III and Artemis IV and beyond‚ as well as informing the agency’s future plans for a permanent human settlement on the moon. One of the major ambitions of the mission is to observe more of the far side of the moon—while satellites have imaged the moon’s far side and some Apollo-era missions did observe parts of the far side, the Artemis II crew will likely see features on the lunar surface no human has seen before.
Mission captain Wiseman said at the crew’s press conference the crew was prepared for the potential risks the flight might pose. “At the end of the day, every ship needs a captain, and I’m ready to make those decisions, but I’m not making them in a vacuum,” he said at the same press conference.
“We’re going to go slow, and we have the ultimate trust in each other, and that’s how we will get through this.”
Editor’s Note (3/29/26): This is a developing story and may be updated.
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