NASA’s Artemis II Mission set for 2026: New era in Moon exploration

NASA is preparing to send astronauts around the moon for the first time in over 50 years with the launch of Artemis II, scheduled for April 2026. The mission marks a major step in the agency’s Artemis program, aimed at re-establishing a long-term human presence on the moon.

The journey to this point began in 1957 with Sputnik I and reached a historic milestone in 1969 with Apollo 11. Despite setbacks like the Apollo 13 mission — famously dramatized in a film starring Tom Hanks — human exploration of the moon has remained a global fascination. However, no crewed missions have visited the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, according to BGR.

NASA’s Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight, successfully launched in November 2022. Artemis II will build on that by sending four astronauts on a 10-day lunar flyby to test the Orion spacecraft and gather biological data. Blood samples from the crew will be analyzed before and after the mission to study the effects of space travel on the human body.

The crew includes Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. Koch holds the record for the longest spaceflight by a woman (328 days), while Hansen will be the first Canadian to travel to the moon.

If successful, Artemis II will pave the way for Artemis III in 2027, which aims to land astronauts at the moon’s South Pole. That mission will be followed by Artemis IV, which will establish the Gateway — the first lunar space station and a key part of NASA’s broader vision for "Artemis Generation Science."

The Artemis logo reflects this mission, with the letter “A” symbolizing both the mission name and the goddess’s arrow aimed at the moon. NASA says the Artemis program is laying “the path for the future success of the Artemis Generation.”

By Sabina Mammadli