artemis 2 will send four astronauts farther from Earth than anyone has gone before on a voyage of more than half a million miles around the Moon and back, with a target to launch as soon as 1 April (Eastern Time). The mission lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Space Launch System rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft and a top-mounted Launch Abort System. NASA has placed the crew in quarantine in Houston ahead of a planned launch window from 1 April to 6 April (Eastern Time).
Artemis 2 mission details
The flight plan for artemis 2 calls for a roughly 10-day mission during which astronauts will test life support, navigation and communications systems while cramped inside an Orion capsule described as the size of a minibus. The launch vehicle is the Space Launch System: a 98m-tall rocket with two huge boosters and four engines. That SLS core stage contains more than three million litres of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and previously flew once in 2022 on an uncrewed mission.
On artemis 2 the Orion spacecraft sits at the top of the stack, and a Launch Abort System sits above the capsule to propel the crew to safety if anything goes wrong during the most dangerous phase of ascent. During much of the testing phase, systems will be validated while the capsule remains in Earth orbit so the crew are closer to home if a problem arises; later the capsule will enter a higher Earth orbit and the crew will manually pilot Orion before control is handed back to controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Immediate reactions from the crew
Reid Wiseman, Commander, NASA, said he has a lifelong love of flying but that on the ground he is afraid of heights. The astronauts have spent more than two years training together for artemis 2 and all sat down with their families to discuss the risks involved before committing to the flight. Victor Glover, Pilot, NASA, brings decades of experience and a military call-sign detailed in mission materials; Christina Koch, Mission Specialist, NASA, brings prior spacewalk experience to the tight crew of four.
The fourth crew member is a Canadian who will carry personal items for the flight; mission notes highlight small personal touches being taken aboard the voyage.
What’s next for the countdown
Engineers rolled the rocket and Orion to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center and have returned systems to the pad after earlier delays caused by a liquid hydrogen leak during a practice operation that forced a slip from an earlier date. The agency is targeting a launch window from 1 April to 6 April (Eastern Time) and the crew remain in quarantine in Houston as final checks continue. Watchful teams will confirm life-support and navigation systems in low Earth orbit before committing to the high-orbit phases of the flight.
Preparations will determine whether artemis 2 proceeds on schedule; the next milestones are pad checkout completion and final mission-readiness reviews, after which a firm launch date inside the stated window will be set.
