Complete Guide To NASA’s Epic Artemis II Mission — Launching This Week

NASA’s Artemis II is scheduled to launch as early as April 1, 2026, with backup windows through April 7.

The mission will carry four astronauts on a roughly 10-day trip that will travel about 254,600 miles from Earth, roughly 4,600 miles beyond the moon.

The SLS/Orion/ESM stack rolled to Launch Complex 39B on March 20 after fixes for a hydrogen leak and a helium flow problem.

Data from Artemis II will test life-support, navigation and communications for future Artemis missions and inform planned lunar infrastructure after Artemis IV.

NASA also announced a nuclear-electric Mars mission (SR-1 Freedom) targeted for December 2028.